
Class _l3Alli- 

Book. J^IlE^ 

Copyright 1J"__- — 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



era 




CHARLES LEWIS EHRENFELD. 

First Principal of The Southwestern (Pennsylvania) State Nor- 
mal School. 



BRIEF STORY 

OF THE 

Founding of the 
Southwestern State Normal School 

AT CALIFORNIA, PA. 



INCLUDING THE 



History of the Change of Financial Policy 

of the State toward all her Normal 
Schools, consequent upon the action 
of the Legislature of 1872 



WITH AN APPENDIX 



BY 



C. L. EHRENFELD, Ex-Principal 



Press of 

The new Era printing company 

Lancaster, Pa. 

I910 






Copyriglit, 1910 
By Charles I^ewis Ehrenfeld 



©G!,A26805g. 



PREFACE. 

The interest in the chapter of financial history of 
the Southwestern State Normal School which con- 
stitutes the essential part of this book and which has 
been the occasion of its publication, has prompted 
an earnest call for a history of the institution from its 
beginning, and of the circumstances attendant upon 
its origin. Who may worthily write such history is a 
matter for the future, and nothing additional to the 
body of the book has been attempted in these pages 
beyond an introductory sketch of the financial efforts 
and experiences of the board of trustees in their long 
struggle to accomplish what they had undertaken and 
what with their limited knowledge of the subject and 
their meager resources was impossible for them from 
the first. 

A comprehensive history of the school, including in 
addition to the essential matter of its financial affairs 
a clear apprehension and a just conception of the 
scholastic and cultural ideas that have dominated it; 
of the moral and religious spirit that has animated it; 
of the pedagogical aims that have warmed its opera- 
tions as well as a proper recognition of the several 
men who at different times have been at its head; 
including also in addition to its important historic 
events as many as practicable of the humorous and 
serious incidents in the manifold life of the school 
which operating all together bind the hearts of all 
connected with the institution as graduates and stu- 



iv The Southwestern Normal School. 

dents, by invisible but imperishable ties, to the associa- 
tions of its recitation and literary halls and to the 
memorable personalities that have gone in and out 
before them in the flowing years that have carried us 
all along with them — such history properly conceived 
and written would be both interesting and useful ; and 
it would be well if it were written before failing mem- 
ory forgets the faithful work that has been done; also 
before the myth-making activity, which, perhaps, has 
already set in, is allowed with impunity to invent 
things that had no basis in fact but which, in the 
absence of adequate original records is, to some extent, 
possible even already and will become more so when 
the few persons that yet survive and that can be con- 
sulted shall also have passed from this life. 

It will be well therefore to add here a record, though 
brief, of the several different school epochs at the 
borough of California prior to the establishment of 
the Southwestern State Normal School in 1874. To 
prevent confusion it is noted here that the *^ California 
Seminary'* and ^^California Academy'* stand for the 
same thing, the former having been the original title 
of that early institution while the latter term or simply 
the academy was used in common reference to it. 

The Different Epochs. 

1. First, the Public or Common school, 18 51. 

This was the first school in the place and was taught 
by (Rev.) Samuel Rothwell, who lived until within 
a few years of this date. 

2. Second, the ^^ California Seminary, ^^ 1 852-1 865. 
The founders of the village, and foremost among 



The Southwestern Normal School. v 

them, Job Johnson, being believers in advanced edu- 
cation as well as anxious to boom their new town 
enterprise, conceived the idea of turning their public 
school into an academy by adding some higher bran- 
ches to the common school course of studies ; and with- 
out waiting or troubling themselves to get a charter, 
they called it the * 'California Seminary''; and from 
that day till this the public school of the borough, 
though distinct in idea, has not been separate from, 
first, the ''seminary'*, afterwards, the normal college, 
and finally the state normal school. Of course then 
the public school moneys were the fund of the "semi- 
nary" plus whatever came in as tuition from outside 
students. Prof. Ellis N. Johnson, a nephew of Job 
Johnson's, was elected as principal and held the place 
from 1 852-1 859. He seems to have been a very fit 
man for the position. The school then had two rooms, 
a brick building having been erected which constitutes 
a part of the present old building on the hill. The 
"seminary" directors and the town seem to have co- 
operated in erecting the necessary school house, and 
in the enthusiasm of the double enterprise of the new 
town and the "seminary" they warmed to each other 
like a swarm of bees in a new hive. After Professor 
Johnson's resignation Professor J. C. Gilchrist, and 
others in the absence of Mr. Gilchrist at Fayette City 
and at Brownsville from 1863-5, had charge of the 
seminary till 1865. The occasion of Professor Gil- 
christ's retiring from the seminary was that owing to 
the financial condition of the country, the political 
turmoil and the oncoming storm of the Civil War the 
attendance of students from the outside was arrested 
and moreover the early interest in the enterprise was 
not so controlling as it had been. 



vi The Southwestern Normal School. 

3. Third, the Southwestern Normal College, 1865- 

1874. 

In 1859 an effort had been made to obtain a charter 
for the ''seminary'' as the normal school of the district, 
and although it passed the Legislature it was vetoed 
by the Governor. The effort was renewed in 1865 
and a charter obtained under the name given above. 
Professor Gilchrist, who with Job Johnson and others 
had obtained the charter, was chosen as principal, 
although the income proved still insufficient for his 
proper support; but in the following year 1866 he was 
chosen as superintendent of the Washington County 
schools, and although having resigned as principal of 
the normal college his remaining practically its head 
was probably the occasion of his defeat as a candidate 
for reelection as county superintendent. After his 
term as county superintendent had expired he was 
again elected principal of the normal college but re- 
signed in 1870 for reasons that are given on a following 
page. 

Professor C. L. Ehrenfeld was secured as principal 
in 1 87 1 and remained at the head of the normal college 
till the close of its epoch in May, 1874, when the 
sunrise of ''recognition'' brought in the long-looked-for 
morning of the State Normal School; of this Mr. Ehren- 
feld then became the first principal. He remained at 
its head till February, 1877, when he resigned to 
accept the position of financial secretary of the Depart- 
ment of Public Instruction. 

Before dismissing the earlier periods the writer 
wishes to say that if he were writing anything in the 
way of a full history of the normal college and of the 
"California Seminary" he would have to speak of a 



The Southwestern Normal School. vii 

number of other teachers and notably of Prof. W. N. 
Hull and of Hon. A. J. Buffington. 

4. Fourth, The Southwestern State Normal School, 
May 26, 1874, and since. 

Mr. Ehrenfeld was principal continuously of the 
normal college and of the state normal school from 
July, 1871, to February, 1877. He sent in the last 
annual report of the Southwestern Normal College 
which may be found on page Ixxx of Pennsylvania 
School Report for 1873 in "Statement T, showing 
Statistics of Academies, Seminaries and Female Col- 
leges.*' 

The report of it as a state normal school occurs 
naturally for the first time in 1874, since it was only 
then it had been recognized as such. This report 
may be found on pages 233-235 in State School Report 
for 1874. 

The occasion of its "recognition'* was so great a 
day that a paragraph from the principal's report will 
be read with interest by the present generation. 

"At last, after many years of toil and waiting the 
Southwestern Normal College makes report as one 
of our State Normal schools. . . . The day of recog- 
nition; the enthusiasm of the multitude present; the 
outbreak of joy, solemn and tearful with many, when 
the decision of the committee was announced at the 
public meeting in the college chapel ; the fire and ele- 
vation of the speeches; the singular impressiveness of 
the meeting as if the Muses and all the Virtues and 
Religion were hovering over the assembly and had 
kindled a divine warmth in all hearts, and had loosened 
the tongues of the orators in unwonted eloquence — 
these things have consecrated the opening of the 



viii The Southwestern Normal School. 

schoors new era in the hearts of very many. May 
such opening prove prophetic of a corresponding fu- 
ture." 

Southwestern State 

Normal School, 191 o. 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 



The following chapter of history was prepared sub- 
stantially many years ago, though with but little 
thought of its publication; subsequent events however, 
and some recent occurrences as at the **01d Timers' " 
Reunion in 1905, suggested the propriety if not the 
necessity of its being given to the public. Moreover, 
the emphatic urgency of a number of those who have 
read it in manuscript has decided the matter in favor 
of its publication. 

The readers of the following narrative will at once 
perceive that the story which it tells of the appeal to 
the Legislature is interwoven throughout with the 
story of the material life of the institution in whose 
behalf the appeal to the Legislature was made. Nei- 
ther can be properly told separately from the other. 

The appeal, though made primarily in the interest 
of an individual school, involved, in the logic of its 
success, and in its actual results, the interests alike 
of all the normal schools in the commonwealth. 

It should be stated, for the information of those not 
familiar with the early history of the Pennsylvania State 
Normal Schools, that the Legislature, while passing 
the act authorizing their establishment; and outlining 
the mode of procedure in order to obtain a charter, 
and designating in particular the several necessary 
buildings and other material equipments, and indi- 
cating the scholastic and pedagogical departments and 
the minimum number of properly qualified instructors 



2 The Southwestern Normal School. 

for the several departments— while setting forth all 
these and other things alike necessary in order to its 
obtaining recognition from the State and therewith 
authority to graduate and license teachers, did not at 
the same time provide, nor did it intend to provide, 
the money to establish them or to support them after- 
wards. In his volume, ^^Education in Pennsylvania,*' 
page 621, Dr. Wickersham says: **No inducement in 
money from the State, either present or prospective, 
was held out for the establishment of the normal 
schools. The prestige of their connection with the 
school system and the power granted them of licensing 
teachers, were expected to bring them into existence 
as rapidly as they could be supported.** 

A potential conviction of Superintendent Wicker- 
sham's was that in the best interests of the people 
themselves they ought themselves to establish and 
support the normal schools. The people needed the 
invaluable education and the intelligent sympathy 
with the schools, and the experience which they would 
and could acquire only by having to pass through the 
struggle of actually planting, equipping and supporting 
them. To conceive the idea of establishing such a 
school in a community and to get a charter for it were 
not very difficult things, and would likely occur to 
more than one in any intelligent community, but to 
found it, to obtain the needed money to put into it 
and the wise intelligence to equip it according to the 
law, and thus obtain recognition from the State and 
therewith authority to graduate and license teachers 
—this was the trying thing to get done ; this only gave 
the institution a foundation. This he expected each 
proposed school to do and not expect the State to 
do it. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 3 

As to the wisdom of this view there might possibly 
be no serious question, but that in the political and 
social not to say educational conditions of this com- 
monwealth, great as it was and is, it was impracticable. 

Moreover, the State could not afford to wait for 
normal schools any more than it could have afforded 
to wait for the establishment of the system of free 
common schools. 

But it is very plain now if it was not then, that if in 
so important an undertaking, so vital to the interests 
of the public schools and so new to the experience of 
the commonwealth, the State intended actually to 
restrict these schools to their own financial resources, 
it ought to have provided a competent and resolute 
board of control by whose authoritative and faithful 
oversight the efforts and expectations of the schools 
might have been kept within the provisions of the law. 

Whether this was practicable at the time when the 
normal school law was enacted is, perhaps, a question 
but it would, for several reasons, have been very de- 
sirable, and especially so as to guard against the at- 
tempt by enthusiastic, not to say ambitious com- 
munities, without population or financial resources 
and where the effort must sooner or later collapse and 
fail unless the State should finally step in and itself 
furnish the means, contrary to its own statute. 

When the law authorizing the normal schools was 
enacted in 1857 the purchase of the ground and erec- 
tion of the required buildings could not, even in that 
day of cheap materials and low prices of labor, have 
been successfully undertaken without many ten thous- 
ands of dollars in hand or in sight, for the purchase of 
the land, for the erection of the recitation halls, chapels 



4 The Southwestern Normal School. 

and dormitories, and with much more prospectively 
available for equipment and beginning of operations, 
with, at least, an approximately full faculty. 

But after the Civil War, when prices of building 
material and of labor had been doubled, only a popu- 
lous, wealthy and liberal community could hope to 
succeed in establishing one of these institutions, in 
accordance with the demands of the law. 

What then were the resources of the borough of 
California in 1865 when it succeeded in obtaining a 
charter for the academy at that place as State Normal 
School of the Tenth District? 

Before answering this, one should not omit stating 
the fact that application had been made by the same 
academy for a charter as a State Normal School, al- 
ready in 1859; that an act granting it passed the 
Legislature but was vetoed by Governor Packer. 

It is worth while to give the Governor's reasons, as 
set forth in an address by Mr. T. B. McCain at the 
Old Timers' Reunion, in 1905. He said: *The Gover- 
nor promptly vetoed it for three reasons: (i) Because 
it proposed to combine the three-fold functions of 
the common school, of an endowed private seminary, 
and of a state normal school; (2) because its provi- 
sions were inconsistent with each other, and with the 
common school law, as well as with the general law 
in regard to state normal schools, and (3) because the 
practical operations of the bill would be subversive 
of the interests and prosperity of the common schools 
of the borough, and of the rights and interests of the 
tenth normal school district, under the act establishing 
normal schools." 

The Governor is quoted further as follows: * There 



The Southwestern Normal School. 5 

is no apparent reason why the tenth normal district 
should be organized under a special law, nor why the 
California Seminary should be recognized as the nor- 
mal school of that district before it has been properly 
organized and established under the general law." 

Mr. McCain proceeds himself to make comment, 
saying: *'It was a wise veto. . . . Think of a great 
institution like this being successfully managed under 
a tripartite agreement between the borough school 
board (subject to annual change, often for political 
reasons) , the trustees of the Academy, and the repre- 
sentatives of the stockholders of the normal school! 
Such a triangular arrangement would be sure to result 
in a tripartite disagreement.'' 

In answer now to the question as to the material 
resources of the borough of California when the first 
application for a charter for the academy as a state 
normal school was made. In the absence of conven- 
ient statistics for 1859 let those of i860, one year after- 
wards, be given. In that year the total population 
of California (borough) men, women and children, was 
476. Five years afterwards in 1 865 , when it succeeded 
in obtaining the charter, the population, men, women 
and children, was 567. The number of its school 
children was 220. The amount levied for school 
purposes was $527. 

Adding to these figures the like statistics of the 
neighboring borough of Greenfield (now Coal Center), 
thus including the whole community, we have a popu- 
lation in 1865 of 945! Five years after this, in 1870, 
the total population of the two boroughs was 1,045, 
having increased one hundred in the intervening five 
years. Its assessments for school purposes in both 



6 The Southwestern Normal School. 

boroughs for 1870 was $855.49, and the State appro- 
priation for both was $140.22. 

These figures tell their own story, ^'Ex eo argumen- 
ta." 

It is hardly to be wondered at that a hardheaded 
member of the Legislature should have remarked that 
''those people must have regarded the requirements 
of the normal school law as a joke or have looked at 
their academy through an immense magnifying glass." 

It could hardly be expected that the people of 
Washington County would sympathize with a com- 
munity, so diminutive in population and wealth, in 
their undertaking of an enterprise that would have 
seriously taxed the financial resources of the most 
populous and wealthy town or community within the 
four counties of their normal school district. 

But the enterprising and determined men who a 
few years before had founded the borough and had 
now succeeded in obtaining for their academy the 
charter for the State Normal School of the Tenth 
District, seem not to have consciously realized, not 
even partially, how impossible it was financially for 
them to accomplish what they had undertaken. 

The great asset in their minds was the academy 
which now since they had obtained the charter, carried 
the dignified name of ''The South Western Normal 
College,'* and seemed to have blinded them to the 
fact that they were no nearer the goal financially than 
they had been before. 

But the introduction of normal methods by Pro- 
fessor J. C. Gilchrist had brought many actual and 
prospective teachers each summer to the "Institute 
Term'* of six weeks to make special preparation for 



The Southwestern Normal School. 7 

the annual examination by the County Superintend- 
ent, and this attendance was much increased when 
Professor Gilchrist himself had become County Super- 
intendent, though he then resigned his position at the 
head of the ''California School/' 

In the light, however, of this normal work it became 
a matter of earnest inquiry, on the part of the average 
citizen, why the school should not be at once ''recog- 
nized'* by the State; and this naturally helps to ac- 
count for the several active efforts of the board of 
trustees to obtain "recognition'' without being re- 
quired to meet the demands of the law in respect of 
buildings and equipments. 

It was therefore thought and said by some educa- 
tors, who were in the normal school work of the State, 
that it was unfortunate for this school that it had gone 
into operation as a normal school previous to its hav- 
ing erected the necessary buildings and furnished the 
necessary equipments, and accordingly other schools, 
and perhaps all of them thereafter, did not attempt 
to begin operations till after they had obtained "recog- 
nition" by having first met the demands of the law. 

But, returning to the financial situation, we find 
that, like the determined men that they were, they 
had struggled to raise money by subscription and by 
the selling of stock; and in 1868 they purchased the 
necessary ground and began a central building, at 
whose corner-stone laying Governor Geary and other 
State officials were present. Although this outwardly 
encouraging step had been taken, we find the financial 
situation was not enhanced, but the work soon came 
to a standstill. In Wickersham's "Education in Penn- 
sylvania," already quoted, we read on page 635, that 



8 The Southwestern Normal School. 

''he had seen the site selected and that some progress 
had been made in the erection of buildings, but that 
it was found impossible to secure subscriptions from 
the citizens to any large amount without a guarantee 
that the State would accept the institution when com- 
pleted as proposed; and the project stood still." 

Of course, no such guarantee could have been given 
further than was already provided in the law, nor 
could any guarantee have availed to enable them to 
make any further subscriptions, because it was not 
within the financial possibilities of the community. 

Superintendent Wickersham could not in the short 
visit of a day penetrate the financial situation. It 
had done its utmost and it had no resources outside 
of itself. It had not enlisted the interest of the people 
beyond its immediate vicinity, and this is not said in 
criticism of the people in the little town or of those 
beyond. As a fact, therefore, the project had not 
only come to a ** standstill,'* as Superintendent 
Wickersham had said, but it had no prospect of means 
to resume work on the arrested building operations. 

But the good work of the academy under Professor 
Gilchrist and others, both before and after it had 
succeeded in obtaining the charter as the *^South 
Western Normal College,*' had gained it a reputation, 
under whose prestige an appeal was made to the Legis- 
lature in that year, 1869, when the work had come to 
a standstill. 

During the three preceding years the State had 
changed its policy to the extent of giving each normal 
school $5,000 after it had met the requirements of 
the law and had obtained recognition. In view of 
this fact a bill was introduced in the Legislature by 



The Southwestern Normal School. 9 

Hon. A. J. Buffington, a member from Washington 
County, and a former teacher in the ** California 
School/' appropriating $15,000 to this school to be 
paid in three annual installments, under certain speci- 
fic stipulations. This was in continuance of the move- 
ment that led to the policy of giving that amount to 
each of the several normal schools. The senator rep- 
resenting the district, Hon. A. W. Taylor, of Beaver 
County, spoke forcibly on Normal Schools and in 
favor of the bill, notwithstanding that it proposed to 
give this large amount, and to give it before instead of 
after the institution had fulfilled the requirements of 
the law and before it had obtained recognition. 
(Legislative Record, 1869, pp. 1043,-1066.) 

In like spirit Senator White of Indiana County said: 
**I have listened with great interest to the history 
which the senator from Beaver has given of the efforts 
to establish this school. I confess my sympathies are 
all with them and I would be sorry to see the enter- 
prise of the people in that direction all checked by 
the failure to come within the technical meaning of 
the law. The County of Washington has justly earned 
the title of promoting liberal education.'' (Legis- 
lative Record, 1869, p. 1067.) While there was some 
decided opposition to the bill it was nevertheless 
passed, and the more readily because Senator Taylor 
said: *'The institution will be ready for recognition 
at most within a year." 

With the help of this appropriation the work on the 
building was resumed and carried forward and put 
under roof with some recitation rooms ready for oc- 
cupancy. Quoting from Professor G. G. Hertzog, 
we read: *ln the fall of 1870, although the building 



lo The Southwestern Normal School. 

was far from completed and poorly furnished, the 
school was removed from the old building to the new." 

While this was a step forward it fell far short of what 
had been expected and promised as possible upon re- 
ceiving the appropriation of $15,000. To those inside 
of the actual situation the prospect was not hopeful. 
Quoting again from Professor Hertzog we read that, 
shortly after the removal to the new building, *Tro- 
fessor Gilchrist, wearied with long waiting and in- 
sufficient support, tendered his resignation to become 
principal of the state normal school at Fairmount, 
West Virginia.'' 

This is one of the most pathetic incidents in the 
early history of the school, that the man who, not- 
withstanding the manifest inability of the community 
to furnish the means to establish the school, had 
nevertheless attempted it and had labored so resolutely 
against the adverse conditions, toiling and teaching, 
until weary of the growing burden he felt it his duty 
to resign when his efforts were seemingly doomed to 
disappointment. 

It was evident that the prospect of obtaining * 'recog- 
nition" within a year, as Senator Taylor had been 
authorized to announce, could not be realized, and, 
in view of the exhausted funds probably not in many 
years if at all, for not only was the recent appropria- 
tion of $15,000 actually or potentially all expended, 
but the outlook for any future assistance from the 
State was darkened by the fact that an appropriation, 
and so large a one, had been made to a school not yet 
recognized; for it had given no little offence, in dif- 
ferent quarters of the commonwealth, as may be seen, 
in part, from the debates cited in the following account 



The Southwestern Normal School. ii 

of the discussion, upon the appropriation applied for 
three years afterwards, in 1872. The action of the 
Legislature in the appropriation of $15,000 in 1869 
was not in accordance with the poHcy of the Depart- 
ment of Education, and Senator Taylor seems to have 
been misinformed when he stated that the proposed 
appropriation had the approval of the Superintendent 
of Common Schools. 

The writer of this happens to know that when in 
1 871, two years after the appropriation of $15,000 
had been made and paid over to the school, and ex- 
pended, and the work of building, not to speak of 
equipment, was again at a standstill with the incom- 
plete building mortgaged for all it could bear, and a 
floating debt besides lying against it, the State super- 
intendent was not pleased and was discouraged, and 
all the more because he had been led by the confident 
expressions from the school to announce its being 
ready for recognition at an early date. 

The effect of the desolate financial condition after 
the assurance had been given of early readiness for 
recognition if the $15,000 were granted, was to drive 
the State department into a more determined purpose 
than ever to favor no further pecuniary assistance to 
any of the schools, but to insist on their being estab- 
lished and not merely chartered and normal work 
undertaken, but really founded and equipped by the 
community which had obtained the charter and had there- 
by bound itself to erect the buildings and equip them 
before asking for recognition. 

When therefore the new principal of the *^ California 
School,'* Mr. Ehrenfeld, decided to go before the Leg- 
islature, in 1872, for an appropriation, he had to en- 



12 The Southwestern Normal School, 

counter a very decided opposition to any further ap- 
propriation to the normal schools at all, as may be 
seen in the following narrative; but one of the most 
remarkable and naturally unexpected things was that 
the Senator from Indiana County, whose plea in the 
Legislature of 1869 in favor of the school at California, 
and that was made chiefly in the name of Washington 
County and that was largely the deciding word that 
carried the appropriation of the $15,000, was now, 
in 1872, the most persistent, not to say denunciatory 
opponent of the proposed appropriation to the same 
school. 

But this senator and others who opposed the ap- 
propriation had the law indeed on their side, albeit 
negatively, as it did not forbid, only it did not author- 
ize nor intend to authorize any appropriation by the 
State; but to the new principal of the * ^California 
School,'' whose responsibilities compelled him to study 
the whole question of these institutions and of the law 
authorizing them, it had become evident that what- 
ever the law did or did not contemplate, the time had 
come for the normal schools to be taken hold of, lifted 
up and put in the arms of the Commonwealth, for 
the Commonwealth itself to rear and foster; and upon 
this conviction he made his appeal. 

And while that appeal for an appropriation suc- 
ceeded and in its effect finally reversed the financial 
policy of the State towards her normal schools, it 
did not then, nor has it yet, quickened in the conscious- 
ness of the people any adequate realization of what 
potentialities of benefit to each rising generation are 
embodied in the enginery of these institutions, if their 
needs were considered with anything like the devotion 



The Southwestern Normal School. 13 

bestowed on the material and political interests of the 
State. Even in their cramped conditions and imper- 
fections they are among the very most useful institu- 
tions within the reach of our people. That great and 
much lauded institution, established in 1834, the com- 
mon school, still awaits its truer realization and larger 
fruition, through increased efficiency of its army of 
teachers, and this can be attained only through in- 
creased efficiency of the normal schools. 

There have been and still are some who speak of 
getting a supply of good teachers without efficient 
training schools, and not a few instances are cited of 
very capable teachers who never had help of a normal 
school. 

We have sometimes heard elderly people speak of 
how when they were young they gathered strawberries 
in the meadow and often found large, luscious berries 
equal to any produced now; and it was true, as many 
as a dozen large ones in a measure, but now, under 
the culture of that berry, the whole measure is filled 
with large ones. The whole army of teachers and 
also the schools have been immensely uplifted and 
improved by the normal schools, as any one of forty 
or fifty years' observation can abundantly testify. 

Pennsylvania is a great State, but her greatness is 
not unsearchable. She needs self criticism. She is 
rich in her material endowments, rich also in the strong 
races that have sought and builded their homes in her 
garden-like valleys and among her hills, but her heter- 
ogeneous races have not yet become a thoroughly 
homogeneous people, hence remain serious political 
and educational problems for her statesmen and her 
educators. 



14 The Southwestern Normal School. 

We cannot drop this subject without saying that 
our State has no important subject before it— no new 
Capitol however splendid outwardly and built with 
or without fraud — nothing more fully and intensely 
charged with the energies needful for the proper evo- 
lution and rightful realization of her possible high 
destiny than the subject of providing well and highly 
trained teachers, intellectually and morally, for the 
generations of children that one after another are 
coming up over the horizon and entering upon her 
fields and into the avenues of her varied activities 
as well as into the serious obligations of citizenship. 

The following chapter of history, together with this 
slight prefatory sketch, aims only to give in brief out- 
line the effort of the little community, of the little 
band of determined men in it, who, without any ma- 
terial resources, with only a bright little academy in 
the village, sought to make it the state normal school 
of the district, but who found the conditions imposed 
by the law beyond their ability to meet and, notwith- 
standing their zeal and sacrifices, could only come to 
a standstill, yet nevertheless at last obtained the re- 
luctant interposition of the State itself and the moneys 
from it to assure a foundation for the struggling enter- 
prise. 

Although this sketch cannot enter upon the matter 
of distributing honor to whom special honor is due, 
yet there is one who is still tarrying with us and re- 
taining his lively interest in the institution, at the 
great age of four score and six years, John N. Dixon, 
of whom a word must be said. 

Mr. Dixon was a wealthy farmer and coal operator, 
living beyond the Monongahela River, in Fayette 



The Southwestern Normal SchooL 15 

County, whose interest in the school was secured at 
an early day. He was unmarried, but may be said 
to have taken the school as his bride and with a 
generous spirit that never lapsed, came to the help 
of the school in its sorest need. 

Even when the State appropriated money it was 
never equal to the schooFs necessities and then it was 
often long withheld, so that for this reason as well as 
from accumulating obligations, the empty treasury of 
the school had to be replenished by borrowing; but 
the school had no assets upon which it could obtain 
money from the banks. At these times it was Mr. 
Dixon that put his potent name on the paper and 
secured the loans. There were some others, but it 
was chiefly he, and oftener than can be counted, who 
gave the effective endorsement. 

There are yet other things to be said of this strong, 
honest man, but they need more space than the com- 
pass of this paragraph. 

The following chapter together with this introduc- 
tory sketch deals primarily with the long and dreary 
financial struggle of those who attempted to plant the 
Normal School of the Tenth District at the borough 
of California, and the rescue of it from failure when 
the State was itself induced at last to step in and save 
it; but the story of its inner life, of its varied, deeply 
engraven experiences also before but especially during 
the now thirty-five years since its * ^recognition,*' and 
while not forgetting others, yet preeminently of him, 
our late, lamented principal, whose long headship con- 
ducted the school to the high level on which it stands; 
of his absorbing and resolute devotion to the highest 
pedagogical aims; of his fine spirit of culture and 



1 6 The Southwestern Normal School. 

altruism that gave to the school the warmth of a 
home; of the sudden and pathetic close to his life 
and to his long and memorable administration — this 
story remains to be written. 

We are permitted to use the following letter from 
Hon. Henry Houck. 

Harrisburg, May 20, 1909. 
My dear Doctor Ehrenfeld: 

I am under many obligations to you for sending me the 
Historical Sketch which I have read from beginning to end. 
I have personal knowledge of many of the facts therein con- 
tained. This sketch should be preserved and I hope you will 
find your way clear to have it published. Perhaps this would 
be done by your school. It should appear in pamphlet form 
and be widely circulated throughout the State. What a 
wonderful history it is, and it is only due you that the friends 
of our normal schools should know the work you did at a time 
when it was very badly needed. ... 

Sincerely yours, 

Henry Houck. 

Also, from among numerous others, the following 
from W. H. Cooke, editor of the News Standard, 
Uniontown. 

Mr. Cooke was a student of the old **California 
Academy'* under Professor Gilchrist and subsequently 
at the normal school under Professor Ehrenfeld. 

Uniontown, Pa., Dec. 29, 1909. 

Dear Doctor: 

I have read the Chapter of History with much interest. It 
is a very valuable contribution to the school's history — ad- 
mirably prepared. The records quoted are convincing that 
it is real history. 




REV, THEODORE BLAND NOSS, 
Principal i883-i909. 

A.M. AND Ph.D., SYRACUSE: STUDENT, BERLIN. JENA AND PARIS. 

(Born May lo, 1852. Died February 28. 1909 ) 



The Southwestern Normal School. 17 

It is very important that this be preserved. The school 
needs it in permanent form and should have it printed and 
bound. ... I thank you for the pleasure the reading of it 
has given me. I will want some copies when it is printed. 

Yours truly, 

Wm. H. Cooke. 



A CHAPTER IN THE LIFE OF THE SOUTH- 
WESTERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT 
CALIFORNIA, PENNSYLVANIA; 



AND History of the Change, by the State, of its 
Financial Policy Towards its Normal Schools, 
Consequent upon the Successful Appeal of 
THIS School to the Legislature by its Prin- 
cipal, FOR AN Appropriation of $10,000, in 1872. 
There have been more than a few articles written 
and pubHshed on the history of the above institution, 
but not a Httle remains yet to be written and pubHshed 
for the proper information of some, even, who have 
been closely identified with the school. 

One of the most valuable, probably the most valu- 
able of all yet published in regard to the early history 
of the school, previous to 1871, is the article entitled: 
"The Normal (School) prior to 1874," by Professor 
G. G. Hertzog. 

This was read upon occasion of the reunion of the 
"Old Timers'' held at commencement, in the Normal 
Chapel of the school, June 27, 1905. 

Several other papers were prepared for the same 
occasion but reference is here made only to the one 
above named, because what is proposed to be set forth 
in the following article will connect itself closely with 
that, at the year 1871, and will overlap it for the 
period between 1871 and 1874, and it will also supply 
some very important historic facts not included in the 

18 



The Southwestern Normal School. 19 

above article, as well as also correct some errors con- 
tained therein. 

What is proposed in this article is a chapter of his- 
tory in the life of this school, and involving the other 
normal schools of the State, that has never been given 
to the public in any connected or adequate narrative, 
although some of the facts have been recognized in a 
casual way. 

The chapter will begin with the principalship of 
Professor Ehrenfeld, who entered upon his duties in 
July, 1 871. The topics will be: 

1. The financial rehabilitation of the school. 

(a) By obtaining an appropriation of $10,000 from 
the State and thereby, since it involved a change of 
the financial policy of the State toward the normal 
schools, insuring the future assistance by the State. 

{b) By securing the passage of an act of the Legis- 
lature supplementary to the charter, authorizing the 
issue of bonds on a first mortgage paying eight per 
cent, interest, thereby securing the fund with which 
to continue building operations and so obtain recog- 
nition. 

2. The consequent resumption of building opera- 
tions. 

3. The attainment of recognition by the State of 
this institution as one of the regular state normal 
schools. 

First, then, of the financial rehabilitation of the 
school. A sentence from Professor Hertzog's article 
alluded to above, will serve to introduce this part of 
the subject. He said: ''In the fall of 1870, although 
the new building was far from completion and poorly 
furnished, the school was transferred from the old 



20 The Southwestern Normal School. 

building to the new, and shortly afterwards, Septem- 
«, . ^. . „ ber 5, Professor Gilchrist, wearied 

Resignation of Pro- .11 . . 1 • m • 

fessor GUchrist and the With long waiting and insumcient 

reason* t 1 1 • • • 

support, tendered his resignation 
to become principal of the State Normal School at 
Fairmount, West Virginia/* Discouraging as the fi- 
nancial situation was to Professor Gilchrist (and he 
was not easily discouraged), and dark as it was to the 
members of the board of trustees, it had not improved 
during the winter after Professor Gilchrist left, nor dur- 
ing the interval between his departure and the coming 
of Professor Ehrenfeld in the following July, 1871. 

Election of Professor C. L. Ehrenfeld. 

Mr. Ehrenfeld had, upon invitation of the board of 
trustees, with a view to his taking the principalship, 
visited the school in May, 1871, while it was in session 
with Professor G. G. Hertzog acting as principal ; and 
while Mr. Ehrenfeld was pleased with the activity of 
the school and its remote possibilities, yet the outlook 
and the surroundings of the school were so little en- 
couraging that he felt he ought not to accept the 
position; and having written thus to the board of 
trustees after his return home, they wrote and urged 
him to consider the matter further. 

It may be as well to quote official documents at 
this point. The following is the official notification 
of his election: 

South Western Normal College, 
California, Pa., June 6, 1871. 
Prof. C. L. Ehrenfeld, 

Dear Sir: I have the honor to say to you that the board 
of trustees have unaminously elected you principal of our 
institution for the ensuing year at a salary of $1,500. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 21 

I hope that you will not hesitate to accept the position. 
Providence has certainly opened to you a wide door of use- 
fulness, and extensive field of labor. 

Our fall session will begin July 18, and continue twelve 
weeks. Hoping to hear from you quite soon, I am, 

Very respectfully yours, 

G. G. Hertzog, Sect'y. 

The following letter from Mr. Edward Riggs to 
Professor Ehrenfeld came after he had written and 
indicated his refusal. 

California, Wash. Co., Pa., June 14, 187 1. 

Mr. Ehrenfeld, 

Dear Sir: We were exceedingly sorry to hear from your 
letter to Mr. Hertzog, of your adverse decision. . . . Please 
let me know at your earliest convenience if there is no pos- 
sibility of your yet accepting the proffered position. Your 
friends here feel a deep solicitude that you should do so, if 
you can do so without too much sacrifice. 

Yours respectfully, 

Edward Riggs. 

Another from the same gentleman on the following 
day: 

California, Wash. Co., Pa., June 15, 1871. 

Mr. Ehrenfeld, 

Bear Sir: Since writing my last, we had a special meeting 
of the board of trustees of our college, and am officially author- 
ized to say to you that we are solicitous for you to accept 
the position to which you have been chosen and that it is 
indispensable for us to know your decision within the next 
ten days. Yours respectfully, 

Edward Riggs. 



22 The Southwestern Normal School. 

Meanwhile, also a letter from the State Department, 
written by Mr. Houck, came to Mr. Ehrenfeld, urging 
him to accept. He then wrote his acceptance and 
entered upon his duties, as already indicated. When 
Professor Ehrenfeld arrived at the school, the institute 
term of six weeks was just opening, and the attendance 
seemed encouraging. As this institute came in the 
summer vacation, between the spring and fall terms, 
and as Professor Gilchrist was having his vacation at 
the same time, the opportunity had been seized to 
employ him for the term of the institute, as Mr. 
Ehrenfeld*s acceptance was then uncertain. 

For the proper understanding of the history of this 
school, it should be borne in mind that it had been in 
existence already many years as an academy, before 
it obtained its charter to become a state normal school, 
and that it continued to do academic and normal work 
until it arrived at recognition and adoption as the 
State Normal School of the Tenth District. 

The Financial Rehabilitation. 

At a meeting of the board during the term of the 
institute, August 19, 1871, the financial situation was 
the special topic of consideration; Professor Gilchrist 
had offered a series of resolutions on the seventh of 
August, which were held over till August 19, when they 
were adopted and which Professor Hertzog has given 
in his article. It is sufficient here to give the points 
of the resolutions. The first declared it to be the 
true policy of the board to ''go forward*' without inter- 
ruption to complete the buildings. The second re- 
solved to ''Proceed to execute a mortgage to an amount 



The Southwestern Normal School. 23 

not exceeding $50,000 to run six years/* etc. The 
third resolved on an immediate effort to borrow the 
amount proposed to be secured by mortgage and, if 
possible, begin the erection of the dormitories in the 
fall. That was in the same autumn of 1871, and it 
was then already August. 

In the comment which immediately follows the reso- 
lutions in Professor Hertzog's article, the author says, 
among other things: ^^an effort was made to move 
along these lines. The Legislature authorized the loan 
on a first mortgage, but money was not so abundant 
then as now . . . and although the rate was made eight 
per cent., and the time fifteen years, the bonds to the 
amount of only $16,000 were sold. Meanwhile Pro- 
fessor Ehrenfeld was elected principal and entered 
upon his duties July i, 1871.*' 

The inference seems natural from the above com- 
ment, that as a result of action taken in obedience to 
those resolutions, legislation was obtained authorizing 
a loan on a first mortgage, at eight per cent., etc., but 
such inference is entirely without facts to support it. 
The legislative action on which **the loans that were 
made on a first mortgage, at a rate of interest of eight 
per cent., and the time fifteen years, and bonds to the 
amount of $15,000 sold,*' was approved April 10, 1873, 
and in pursuance of a series of resolutions passed by 
the board of trustees (not in August, 1871, but) on the 
third of March, 1873, which was more than a year and 
a half, more than twenty months, after the passing of 
the resolutions given in the historical article above 
quoted; all of which also occurred after Professor 
Ehrenfeld's successful appeal to the legislature in 1872 
for $10,000, but after which it was still necessary not 



24 The Southwestern Normal School. 

only to effect a loan, but also to get authority for it 
and to obtain such authority, the act of April lo, 1873 
was secured by application of the board to the Legis- 
lature through the agency of Professor Ehrenfeld; all 
of which facts, and the preliminary proceedings of the 
board of trustees, and, afterwards, of the Legislature, 
will be given as fully as practicable when each point 
is reached in its proper place in the course of this narra- 
tive. It is apparent, also, that the statement at the 
end of the above comment, that * 'meanwhile. Professor 
Ehrenfeld was elected and entered upon his duties in 
1 871," needs explication. It reads very much as if 
he had come in while the things named in the above 
comment were going on, or had been done; but none 
of them had, as yet, been even begun or thought of, 
nor were they accomplished without his chief agency. 
Indeed, in the body of the bonds themselves, it is said: 
**and in pursuance of a resolution of the board of 
trustees of said college, adopted at a meeting thereof, 
on the third of March, 1873 and entered on their 
minutes of that date,'* so that the date of the board's 
action and statement of the bond, negatives the impli- 
cation of the comment. 

The errors that occur in the article were, of course, 
unintentional, and were evidently due to the author's 
being without the historical facts and official docu- 
ments at that point in his statement. 

The action and resolutions of that meeting, August, 
1 871, did not result in any practical measures, but 
did make still clearer the fact that the trustees were at 
the end of their resources. 

Recurring to the date of the meeting at which the 
above resolutions offered by Professor Gilchrist were 



The Southwestern Normal School. 25 

passed, we proceed with our narrative. The summer 
institute had closed ; Professor Gilchrist had returned 
to his own field, and the *'fall term'' began with many 
fewer students than had been enrolled in the term of 
the institute, those attendant upon it having been 
mostly teachers who had attended in order to equip 
themselves better for the work of teaching, during the 
ensuing year. 

If the school had, at that time, had authority to 
graduate teachers, it might, at once, have commanded 
a very respectable attendance. 

It was, in some ways, pathetic to hear the repeated 
inquiries of young people who were struggling to ac- 
quire scholastic and official equipment to teach, as to 
when the school would obtain state recognition and 
have authority to graduate teachers. Many had a 
dim, yet sort of positive feeling that the new principal, 
having come under rather friendly relations with the 
State Department, might be able, soon, to get the 
school out of its unfortunate condition. This eager- 
ness in the minds of the student teachers intensified 
the feeling of discomfort in the board of trustees that 
they could not obtain adoption by the state. 

Indeed, this was the dominant feeling in their ex- 
perience; and, in their solicitude, they had, at times 
already earlier, indulged in the fond hope that the 
law requiring dormitories and other large equipments 
in order to obtain recognition, might be set aside. 
Accordingly, six months before this date, the minutes 
of a meeting held January 3, 1871, record the following 
action: ^^ Resolved, that a committee of three be ap- 
pointed to obtain an enabling act, by which we can 
be recognized without dormitories." 



26 The Southwestern Normal School. 

Of course, no such enabling act could be secured, 
chiefly because the purpose of dormitory life had 
entered essentially into the idea of the Pennsylvania 
normal schools, as conceived by the authors of the 
statute establishing them. Indeed, an important fact 
ought here to be noted, that at the time when the 
Pennsylvania normal school system was conceived, its 
law framed and established in 1857, the cost of living 
and the cost of building were very low, and the f ramers 
of the normal school law thought that, by any com- 
munity containing the resources to justify a charter, 
they could be established, the required ten acres of 
land secured, the buildings erected, and, with the 
proceeds from boarding and room-rent in the dormi- 
tories, the schools could be supported. In the en- 
thusiasm that generally possesses the founders of new 
institutions, the projectors of the Pennsylvania system 
did not gather into their thought all the conditions 
that were actual at the time, not to speak of any new 
ones that would inevitably arise. So, whatever might 
have been possible, had civil, social, and economic 
conditions remained as they were before the upheaval 
of the Civil War, there was ho room for any such idea 
in the conditions since that period. 

But recurring again to the efforts and anxieties of 
the trustees, there were still some who hoped that 
something might be done to modify the terms of 
recognition. Accordingly, at a meeting of the board 
held August 7, 1871, during the institute term, the 
minutes say: 'Trofessor Ehrenfeld was requested to 
attend the State Teachers* Association, in order [to 
endeavor] to create a more favorable sentiment 
towards the normal schools, and to obtain some defi- 



The Southwestern Normal School. 27 

nite knowledge as to what will be required for recog- 
nition." 

Mr. Ehrenfeld, accordingly, went to that meeting 
at Williamsport, had an interview with Mr. Wicker- 
sham, which, while it showed his kindly spirit and his 
earnest desire that the school should, as soon as pos- 
sible, achieve recognition, nevertheless, encouraged no 
hope of its reaching that goal, except by meeting the 
requirements of the law. No other result could have 
been expected. 

At length, after having sought in vain to get the 
State to relieve them of the necessity of erecting the 
additional buildings which the law required, they con- 
ceived the idea of an effort indicated in the following 
record : 

Appeal to the Legislature for an Appro- 
priation OF $10,000. 

At a meeting of the board of January 15, 1872, 
some five months after the above events, the minutes 
say: *' Professor Ehrenfeld was directed to open cor- 
respondence with the State Normal School Depart- 
ment and with the members of the Legislature and 
with normal school principals, etc., with a view to 
obtain the passing of a bill giving additional appro- 
priations to the normal schools.*' 

The minutes do not record what was the first pro- 
position of the board and discussed by them, namely, 
that Professor Ehrenfeld should visit, in succession, 
the several existing normal schools and consult with 
their principals and leading directors, with a view to 
inducing a concerted movement towards the desired 
end. 



28 The Southwestern Normal School. 

After some discussion, this was changed from the 
idea of a visit by Professor Ehrenfeld to the several 
normal schools, to the plan of correspondence by him, 
according to the action above quoted. 

To both of the above methods Professor Ehrenfeld 
objected. While he was entirely willing and anxious 
to do whatever he could towards the desired result, 
he expressed his decided conviction that any effort 
of his upon either line of procedure above suggested 
would be doomed to failure; and for the following 
reasons: 

1. The other schools would very probably regard 
it as presumptuous on the part of a man who had been 
in connection with the normal schools for only seven 
months, and principal of one which was not yet one 
of the recognized state normal schools, to take it upon 
himself to attempt to start such a movement, and who, 
in addition to being the youngest in the service, was 
also probably the youngest in years of all the prin- 
cipals. 

2. That it would practically be impossible to secure 
unity of effort in face of the known policy of the State 
Superintendent, who did not favor additional appro- 
priations beyond the $15,000 given to each school 
and that this school had already received. 

3. That to ask for an appropriation of $100,000, 
as was suggested, to be divided among the several 
schools, or even only $75,000, would be to ask an 
amount which the Legislature would not think of 
granting, and especially not in the face of the general 
indifference to the normal schools, not to speak of the 
actual opposition to them in some places. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 29 

Mr. Ehrenfeld's Plan. 

But Mr. Ehrenfeld proposed to go to Harrisburg 
with a statement of the critical situation of this school, 
and, into which it had come, not by any fault of its 
own, but simply by its endeavoring to do what the 
State required of it; of how it had done all it could 
do to establish itself; of how it was staggering under 
the load of debt it had incurred and was brought to a 
standstill in its efforts to meet the requirements of 
the state normal school law. 

This situation he proposed to set before the State 
Superintendent, Dr. Wickersham, and also before cer- 
tain members of the Legislature with whom he was 
acquainted, some of them being personal friends from 
whom, therefore, he could obtain a sympathetic hearing, 
and ask of the Legislature a special appropriation of 
$10,000 for this school, to enable it to proceed with the 
erection of the necessary buildings and to obtain the 
equipments requisite to secure adoption by the State. 

By this plan Mr. Ehrenfeld thought he might pos- 
sibly be successful: (i) Because he would be unham- 
pered by others in presenting the needs of the normal 
schools in general. (2) He was well acquainted with 
Senator Rutan, the Speaker of the Senate, and had a 
strong personal friend in Major B. L. Hewitt, who 
was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee 
of the House which, at that time, was also the Com- 
mittee on Appropriations, and besides was chairman 
of the Committee on Congressional Apportionment, 
being also in prominent positions on four other com- 
mittees, and was probably the most influential member 
of the House at that time. He was a man of great 



30 The Southwestern Normal School. 

force of character, as well as a man of broad culture, 
(3) The amount of $10,000 for this one school would 
not be a startling sum to ask for. (4) And, really 
most important of all, if successful, it would effect 
as real a change in the policy of the State relative to 
the normal schools as if a general law were passed to 
that effect, without the delay of doing battle for such 
a law, while, moreover, a general law could not bind 
succeeding legislatures. 

The Acceptance of this View by the 
Trustees. 

The board of trustees accepted this view of the 
matter, and, in a few days, raised among themselves 
$50 to pay Mr. Ehrenfeld's railroad fare and hotel 
expenses in prosecuting his mission. 

Mr. Ehrenfeld goes to Harrisburg. 

He went to Harrisburg on Monday the fifth of 

February, 1872. On Tuesday he had an interview 

Goes to Harrisburg with Dr. Wickcrsham, and laid 

on his mission. ^^ie casc before him with a state- 

ment of his purpose to go before the Legislature with 
a direct appeal for a special appropriation. After the 
matter had been gone over at length, and Dr. Wicker- 
sham had patiently and kindly listened to what seemed 
to him a rather daring movement, as indeed it was, 
he finally said that he need not repeat his views on 
the subject of additional appropriations to the normal 

Interview with Mr. Schools, but that, in vicW of his 

wickersham. (]y[j-^ Ehrenfcld's) statement, he 

would not oppose his effort, though he did not think 
he could succeed. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 31 

After thanking Dr. Wickersham for his kindly atti- 
tude, Mr. Ehrenfeld went, the same afternoon, to see 
Messrs. Leatherman and Mickey, members of the 
Legislature from the home district of the school, but 
he sought a special interview with Mr. Hewit, Chair- 
man of the Ways and Means Committee. To him, 
he opened the whole question and expressed his con- 
viction that the schools, as pro- 
jected in the act authorizing 
them, could never be established in accordance with the 
requirements of the law except upon large and generous 
help from the State. On this point, he called Mr. 
Hewit's attention to the breadth of plan and extent 
of equipment required by the normal school law, citing 
Interview with Mr. especially the several paragraphs 

^®^^*- of the original act of 1857, and 

expressed the decided conviction that unless the Com- 
monwealth rose to a comprehensive view of what had 
been authorized and was required in its name, and 
would give them the necessary financial assistance, 
the whole grand project would lapse into a pitiful 
simulacrum of the original scheme. Mr. Hewit be- 
came deeply interested, not to say touched in his 
sympathies, and being himself an educated and broad- 
minded man, he entered heartily into the subject 
and said to Professor Ehrenfeld that the Ways and 
Means Committee would meet the following after- 
noon, Wednesday, and that he should prepare a 
statement for him (Mr. Hewit) to take with him into 
the committee meeting and that he should hold him- 
self in readiness to be called in before the committee, 
if necessary. 

Mr. Ehrenfeld prepared his statement with much 



32 The Southwestern Normal School. 

care, making it as comprehensive and compact as he 
Mr.Ehrenfeid»s state- could, showing what had been 

'^®^** done by the people, the amount 

of debt, the arrest of the work of building, but espe- 
cially pressing the point that whatever the Legislature 
might or might not do for the normal schools in 
general, immediate relief must be had for this school 
in the straits into which it had come, in its ardent 
effort to do what the State required, and he, therefore, 
asked an appropriation of $10,000. 

Mr. Hewit took the paper and soon after the com- 
mittee had met, Mr. Ehrenfeld went to the rotunda 
near the door of the committee room. After waiting 
nearly an hour, Mr. Hewit came out and told Mr. 
,, ^^ ^ ,^, Ehrenfeld that he needed not to 

Mr. Enreniela's sue- i r i • 11 

cess with the Ways and go bet Ore the Committee, that he 

Means Committee. 11 1.1 jj\ . , . 1 

had read them the statement and 
had made some remarks upon it and that the committee 
had agreed to his request, and that he (Mr. Ehrenfeld) 
should now write a section making the appropriation. 
The latter, thereupon, took a piece of paper, laid it on 
the crown of his hat and wrote the section as follows: 
'Tor the completion of the Southwestern State Nor- 
mal School of the Tenth District, $10,000." 

This was inserted verbatim and was made section 
fifty of the appropriation bill (and it remained un- 
changed until it was amended to include like appro- 
priations to two others of the normal schools). 

Mr. Ehrenfeld then went to Dr. Wickersham and 
reported progress. To say that he was surprised, is 

Legislative Journal, tO pUt it VCry mildly. But he 

1872, page 403. cautioucd Mr. Ehrenfeld not to 

think the battle was won, saying that it was indeed a 



The Southwestern Normal School. 33 

most encouraging beginning, but that it would have 
to encounter great and probably fatal opposition. 

After remaining some days longer at Harrisburg, to 
confer upon the normal school interests, he returned 
to his school, leaving the matter of his appropriation 
for the time, to the care, especially, of Mr. Hewit and 
of Mr. Rutan, as the men who, by official position and 
weight of influence, could do most for it, though others, 
as will appear, were active and helpful. 

Soon after the appropriation to this school had been 
agreed to by the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. 
Brockway, member of the Legislature from Columbia 
County, encouraged by Mr. Ehrenfeld's success, pre- 
sented the case of the Bloomsburg school, and it 
having been found also in an especially needy con- 
dition, the sum of $10,000 to it was included in the 
appropriation bill, as section 5 8. (Legislative Journal, 
1872, p. 406.) 

On February 21, Mr. Hewit, as chairman of the 

Ways and Means Committee, submitted the general 

Discussion on section appropriation bill, and on the 

^'ont^l^tiw^sfe^r- next day, called it up. (Leg. 

Normal School. Jour., p. 398.) When section 50 

was read, appropriating $10,000 to this school, Mr. 
Mahon of Franklin County moved to add an appro- 
priation of $15,000 to the Cumberland Valley School, 
of the Seventh District, to aid in the erection of its 
building. This had not been asked for by that school, 
but was apparently volunteered by Mr. Mahon, mem- 
ber from that district. 

This precipitated a lengthy discussion. In reply 
to Mr. Mahon, Mr. D. N. White, of Allegheny, said: 
*^There was an agreement made that every normal 



34 The Southwestern Normal School. 

school should have $15,000 and I believe they have 
all had it. The Southwestern had its $15,000 but 
the Committee of Ways and Means, after hearing 
their case, thought it proper to give $10,000 more/' 
Legislative Journal, Afterwards, in the same debate, 

page 403. when other normal schools were 

brought in for appropriations, the same Mr. White 
said: *1 wish merely to say that there is no evidence 
before the [appropriations] Committee that these 
[other] institutions need this money or are in debt. 
The claims of these institutions to which the appro- 
priations have been made [the Southwestern and the 
Bloomsburg] were pressed very strongly, and strong 
evidence was produced that they needed the money. 
For this house to make appropriations to those not 
asking it, to be used by the board of trustees as they 
choose, is certainly a very great squandering of public 
funds. Let us begin with those that are really in 
need.'' (Leg. Jour., p. 405.) 

After several speeches by others, Mr. Hewit, the 
chairman, said : *'I do not desire to make any extended 
remarks upon this subject. There are two sections 
to this bill (sections 50 and 58) each relating to a 
normal school of the State, both of which received the 
state appropriation of $15,000. It was a new ques- 
tion presented to the Ways and Means Committee, 
that of making an appropriation beyond the $15,000 
granted to each of them, and we had it very fully 
discussed. Very reliable testimony was brought be- 
fore us from these respective districts. I think this 
amendment [for the Cumberland Valley School] should 
not receive the favorable consideration of this house. 
The normal schools are twin sisters to the common 



The Southwestern Normal School. 35 

school system and sooner or later, the Commonwealth 
will have to assist them, and it will be proper and right, 
but let them go on . . . and after they have exhausted 
all their means, let them go before the Ways and 
Means Committee and I have no doubt they will have 
their claims fully considered, and will receive all they 
should from the Commonwealth. This school in Col- 
umbia County [Bloomsburg] put in a claim . . . and 
made a statement to the committee which satisfied 
them that their claim was just. 

^'In relation to the claim from the Southwestern at 
California in Washington County, it was shown that 
men there had given one tenth of all they were worth 
in the world, to erect that normal school building. 
I shall vote against this proposition [of the Cumber- 
land Valley School] now, with the hope that the con- 
sideration of the Legislature will be given them when 
they show that their necessities require it.'' (Leg. 
Jour., p. 403.) 

The aim of Mr. Hewit was to keep before the Legis- 
lature the fact that the situation of the two schools, 
for which the appropriations of $10,000 to each had 
been allowed, called for extraordinary measures on the 
part of the State, if the interests, both of the State 
and of the schools, were to be secured. 

Mr. Mickey, of Washington County, also spoke 
forcibly to the same point as Mr. Hewit. The dis- 
cussion was continued at length, and very earnestly, 
by other members, and the amendment to include the 
Cumberland Valley School (Seventh District) was 
carried, notwithstanding the chairman's opposition. 
(Leg. Jour., p. 406, col. 2.) 

After another topic had been taken up and disposed 



36 The Southwestern Normal School. 

of, Mr. Hewit, chairman of the Ways and Means Com- 
mittee, recurred to the subject of the special normal 
school appropriations and succeeded in having the vote 
on the Cumberland Valley School reconsidered, and 
the appropriation to it stricken out. But again, after 
another legislative topic had been taken up and dis- 
posed of, Mr. Mahon, of Franklin County, who had, 
meantime, rallied enough friends of his amendment 
in behalf of the Cumberland Valley School to hold 
back adjournment, although it was then late in the 
day, was able to reinstate his amendment and to have 
it passed, by a close vote, however, of 3 1 to 29. (Leg. 
Jour., p. 408.) 

Mr. Hewit, in his opposition to including an appro- 
priation to the Cumberland Valley School, was not 
unfriendly to that school or to any other, but he saw 
clearly that the effect of adding the amendment, mak- 
ing an appropriation to a school that had neither itself 
asked for it, nor, at the time, was in need, would be 
to defeat the appeal that had been made for the im- 
perilled schools of California and afterwards of Blooms- 
burg (of the Tenth and Sixth Districts). 

Anyone in doubt as to the correctness of his opinion 
needs but to consult the Legislative Journal for 1872, 
pages 403 to 406, in order to discover the dominant 
sentiment upon the subject. While there were not a 
few members of the House who spoke very favorably 
of the normal schools and of their probable needs, 
notably, Mr. Mitchell, of Tioga, there were not a half 
dozen who were in favor of an appropriation to every 
one of them, or of any large ap- 

Opposition. . . ' ^1 J: 11 T- • 

propriation to them at all. Evi- 
dence of this appears especially in the remarks of Mr. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 37 

Elliott, the speaker of the House, in reply to Mr. 
Mitchell, who had moved an appropriation of $10,000 
to each of the five schools already recognized, adding 
that it would be only $50,000. To this, Mr. Elliott 
replied: ^^The gentleman says, this is only a matter 
of $50,000! Fifty thousand dollars, only a small 
matter! But it is $50,000 to institutions that are 
not asking it at our hands, and it is a voluntary con- 
tribution on the part of this Legislature to parties that 
are not seeking our favor! When the institution lo- 
cated in the gentleman's neighborhood is in distress, 
and comes into this House, representing its condition, 
then it will be a question for this House to consider, 
whether it will relieve that institution or not. But 
to say that this House shall grant $10,000 to each 
normal school in the State, when these normal schools 
do not come here and ask it, seems to me to be a pre- 
posterous proposition.*' (Leg. Jour., p. 405.) Re- 
marks of others to the same purport might be added. 

The appropriation bill passed the House, finally, 
on the same day, namely, the twenty-first of February, 
including the appropriations to the Southwestern and 
Bloomsburg schools with no recorded opposition, and 
the appropriation to the Cumberland Valley School, 
by a majority of two votes, in a call of the yeas and 
nays. 

As soon as the success of Professor Ehrenf eld's ap- 
peal, in behalf of the Southwestern School at Calif- 
ornia, became known among the other normal schools, 
a movement was begun by them to attempt a larger 
measure, and, under the lead of the Cumberland Valley 
School, a circular was issued to all the state normal 
schools calling a convention of the principals and other 



38 The Southwestern Normal School. 

representatives of them to meet at Harrisburg, March 
6, 1872, with a view to arrest the appropriations under 
way and to substitute for them a bill to carry an ap- 
propriation to all the schools. 

Harrisburg Convention of March 6. 

The convention was held accordingly. Professor 
Ehrenfeld, the principal, and Mr. Dixon, chairman of 
the board of trustees of the Southwestern Normal 
School, represented it. Not only were the principals 
of the several schools present and members of their 
boards of trustees, but some members of both houses 
of the Legislature, representing the districts in which 
the different schools were located, attended the con- 
vention. 

After much discussion, a committee was appointed 
of trustees of the different schools to prepare a paper 
expressive of the thought of the convention and to 
formulate a bill to be presented to the Legislature as a 
substitute for the appropriations under way for the 
Southwestern School and others that had been added. 

The committee made their report as the first busi- 
ness of the afternoon, but many difificulties presented 
Mr. Ehrenfeid's state- thcmsclvcs and somc began to 

ment of his plan. doubt the wisdom of their move- 

ment. At this juncture. Professor Ehrenfeld was 
asked to make a statement. He had previously kept 
silent except to answer questions. He now gave the 
history of his procedure ; how his school in its financial 
prostration had desired him to visit the several normal 
schools or enter into correspondence with them with 
a view to inducing a concerted movement, such as 
they were now proposing to undertake; how he, as a 



The Southwestern Normal School. 39 

new man among the normal principals, shrank from 
assuming such an undertaking; that, moreover, from 
his opinion of unpreparedness of the people of the 
State for such a large appropriation as they were con- 
templating to the normal schools, he doubted its pres- 
ent practicability; but that he had felt that while 
success of such a large and general demand in behalf 
of the normal schools was not, at that time, to be hoped 
for, he had thought that, possibly, by the statement of 
the facts in the situation of his school, a situation into 
which it had come in its honest and strenuous endeavor 
to meet the large requirements of the law, and in view 
of the large scheme of the normal school system, 
which was as yet but dimly apprehended, an appro- 
priation of $10,000 might be granted; and that if the 
appeal did succeed, it would inevitably result in like 
appropriations to all the schools by subsequent legis- 
latures. 

After a few remarks from others. Senator Waddell 

of West Chester, afterwards Judge Waddell, a trustee 

Speech of Senator of the West Chester Normal 

'^^^^®^* School, made a short speech to 

the effect that he felt their best policy would be to 
drop what they had come together for, and not inter- 
fere with what Professor Ehrenfeld had been able to 
get done; and he moved that they now **adjourn and 
go home, leaving the gentleman from Washington 
[Professor Ehrenfeld] alone,'' as he believed his appro- 
priation would go through. 

Notwithstanding this appeal of Senator Waddell's, 
a majority of the convention, but not a majority of 
the principals, adhered to their view as to the substitu- 
tion of their bill for the appropriation under way and 



40 The Southwestern NormaljSchooL 

adopted it; and two days afterwards, on the eighth 
of March, they gave their proposed substitute into 
the hands of Senator Graham of Allegheny, chairman 
of the Finance Committee of the Senate. 

But the proposed substitute was not presented in 
the Senate till the twenty-sixth of March, more than 
two weeks after the session of the convention. Mean- 
while, the general appropriation bill had come from 
Action of the Senate the Housc to the Senate and the 

prZS paU'd bT Finance Committee of the Senate, 

the House. Jed by Senator Graham, the chair- 

man, had struck out Section 50 of the House bill 
appropriating $10,000 to the Southwestern Normal 
School and had put matter of an entirely different 
nature into that section, and this, without having 
brought the matter of that appropriation before the 
Senate at all. This, the financial committee of the 
Senate, probably, had the prerogative to do, and it 
was done in order to arrest and set aside the action of 
the House appropriating $10,000 to the *' California 
School'' and to make a place for the substitute pro- 
posed by the committee of the March convention. 
(See Leg. Jour., 1872, p. 910, Sen. Graham.) 

This action of the senate committee and the appar- 
ent attitude of senators generally, discouraged some 
of our friends so much that Mr. Mickey, one of our 
Washington County members, sent the following tele- 
gram. 

Harrisburg, Pa., March 12, 1872. 

Professor Ehrenfeld, California, Pa. 

The passage of the appropriation is doubtful. Will it 
answer as well if we can get you relieved from building dormi- 
tories? Answer by telegram. 

J. M. Mickey. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 41 

Mr. Ehrenf eld's reply was in the negative; for while 
Mr. Wickersham was keeping his hands off of the 
effort to get an appropriation, he would have opposed 
Mr. Mickey's proposition with might and main. 

When the appropriation bill had been taken up in 

the Senate and was under consideration, and the point 

The Appropriation had been reached where the said 

Biu in tiie Senate. appropriation to this school had 

been stricken out (p. 909, Leg. Jour.), Mr. Rutan 

moved that section 50 of the house bill, which 

^ , « , , had been stricken out by the 

Senator Rutan*s move . - . - 

to restore the House senate committee, be remserted 
as follows: *Tor the completion 
of the Southwestern Normal School of the Tenth Dis- 
trict, $10,000.'' 

After he had made his motion, he said: 'While I 
am on the floor, I just wish to say one word in reference 
to this school. The normal school is in Washington 
County, in my district. They have put up a very 
fine large building for the purposes of the school and 
have not money to put up the dormitories required 
under the general law. The citizens of the adjoining 
community have contributed very liberally to put up 
the building already erected. I believe it is said that 
citizens of that town have given one tenth of all their 
wealth to put up that building. Now then before 
they can be recognized under the general law of the 
State, they are required to put up a certain number 
of dormitories; they have raised some money for that 
purpose but it is impossible to save it to the State 
unless the State contributes more. The House have 
heard the whole question and have put in this section 
giving them $10,000. I think it is very evident if 



42 The Southwestern Normal School. 

help be not given that that school with a number of 
others of the same kind in the State will be useless and 
the money already contributed will be lost. There is 
every reason why we as senators should vote to restore 
this section and give this school this money.'' 

Considerable discussion ensued upon technical 
points that were raised as well as upon amendments 
that were offered, during which Senator Graham, 
chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, 
said: **There are some seven or eight institutions of 
this kind in the State and they are all worthy of state 
aid. ... At a convention of superintendents [prin- 
cipals] of the different normal institutions of the State, 
held in Harrisburg some two weeks ago, the proposi- 
tion was submitted to them and I have a communica- 
tion from them in my hand. The Committee of 
Finance, unwilling to discriminate between them, 
thought it better to refer the entire matter to the 
Senate and allow them to appropriate as in their wis- 
dom they might see fit to these institutions." (Leg. 
Jour., p. 910.) 

Thereupon, Senator Strang of Tioga offered an 
amendment appropriating $5,000 to the Mansfield 
school of the Fifth District to assist in paying its 
debts. 

Then Senator Purman of Greene County said : '*Mr. 
Speaker, I think the section ought to be restored as 
proposed by the Senator from Beaver, Mr. Rutan. 
The people of this district [of the Southwestern Nor- 
mal] have gone to a very great expense and have built 
a very fine house, which they were not able to com- 
plete so that it can be recognized by the State, and 
it is a great pity that they should be delayed any Ion- 



The Southwestern Normal School, 43 

ger in the full enjoyment of the money and property 
that they have contributed for its erection. As to 
the amendment from the senator from Tioga, I think 
that school is entitled to the money/' (Leg. Jour., 
p. 910.) 

Mr. Strang followed, saying: ''Mr. Speaker, I have 
made up my mind in response to the appeal of the 
senator from Beaver [Mr. Rutan, the Speaker] and 
other gentlemen that I will not load his amendment 
with mine. I will withdraw my amendment with per- 
mission of the Senate and offer it as a separate section 
of the bill.'' (Leg. Jour., p. 910.) 

Mr. Graham then offered the substitute proposed 
by the committee of the normal school convention 
several weeks before, instead of the sections making 
appropriations to the Southwestern Normal School, 
etc. 

The proposed substitute is of such historical impor- 
tance that is is here reproduced. 

Harrisburg, Pa., March 8, 1872. 

Hon. James L. Graham, Chairman of the Senate Finance 
Committee : 

Sir: We, the undersigned, a committee appointed by a 

convention representing the several state normal schools of 

The March Conven- ^^e Commonwealth,^ respectfully re- 

tion's proposed substi- quest, as per resolution of said con- 
vention, that you will substitute in the 
appropriation bill, the following section in lieu of those in the 
bill as it passed the House of Representatives, making appro- 
priations to the normal schools at California, Bloomsburg and 
Shippensburg, the following: That an appropriation of $5,000 
each shall be made to the several normal schools now recog- 



44 The Southwestern Normal School, 

nized by the State, including the schools at California and 
Shippensburg. They also recommend that the appropriation 
of $15,000 made as it passed the House (for the education 
of teachers) be increased to $30,000, and that the allowance 
to students in the several schools expressing their intention 
to become teachers be, hereafter, one dollar per week instead 
of fifty cents. (Leg. Jour., p. 910.) 

To this, Senator Delameter offered an amendment 
including Edinboro and Indiana. 

Senator Buckalew interposed at this point, depre- 
cating the shape into which the matter was being put, 
and said: ^'Now here, in the House Bill is a distinct 
case [Southwestern Normal]. I submit as to whether 
it is not best for us to act upon that by itself and de- 
cide it. On further, in the bill, there is another case 
[that of Bloomsburg] .... These were cases sent us 
by the House. I am in favor of acting upon these in 
succession and determining them upon their merits 
and then take up the case of the senator from Tioga, 
the Fifth District, which is one of signal merit, appeal- 
ing to us more strongly perhaps than any other one 
in the Commonwealth, and act upon that. And if 
other gentlemen have other propositions to make, let 
them be made one at a time, and each of them receive 
due consideration, but if, in the commencement of 
the consideration of this subject of normal schools, 
we are to have a heap of amendments rolled up to- 
gether, we shall get into great confusion. I may be 
obliged to vote against all the amendments when they 
are piled together. If we accept one amendment to 
this proposition of Washington County, we shall have 
to take another and after a little while, we shall have 
the same scene occur we had this morning. Now let 



The Southwestern Normal School. 45 

us take up each one of these cases which the House 
has proposed and determine them on their merits and 
afterwards let us take up the Senate cases. I appeal 
to gentlemen, then, not to offer amendments now and 
get us into a sort of omnibus bill that will oblige mem- 
bers to vote against the whole concern when they are 
in favor of some of them.'* (Leg. Jour., p. 910.) 

But Mr. Davis, Senator from Berks County, spoke 
in favor of $5,000 to all and of not making any dis- 
crimination among them. (Leg. Jour., pp. 910-91 1.) 

Thereupon, Senator Graham of Allegheny said: 
**That is just the proposition made by the convention 
of superintendents.*' 

Mr. Rutan then said: ''Will the senator from Alle- 
gheny allow me to ask him a question? If the super- 
intendents [principals] of the normal schools of the 
State did not inform him that if it would endanger 
the passage of the section that I have moved to restore, 
and another section or two of the same nature in the 
bill, that they would withdraw their proposition; that 
they thought it so important that the $10,000 should 
be given to the Washington County School and one 
or two others of the State for the purpose of completing 
them, that they would not injure the passage of those 
sections by the amendment proposed by the senator 
from Berks.** (Leg. Jour., p. 911.) 

Mr. Graham: ''I would answer that question by 
saying that the communication itself states distinctly 
that the superintendents [principals] of the normal 
schools do not desire those schools to have $10,000 
but to have $5,000.** (Leg. Jour., p. 911.) 

Mr. Graham was under a misapprehension. He 
did not distinguish between the principals of the nor- 



46 The Southwestern Normal School. 

mal schools and the other members of the convention 
who were members of their boards of trustees. He 
confounded the two under the term ''superintendents/' 
The names signed to the paper of the convention pro- 
posing^fe substitute were all names of trustees. It 
was supposed that the trustees who had the finances 
of the schools in their hands were the proper ones to 
propose action in the matter of obtaining an appropria- 
tion, but the principals, as a rule, had a better appre- 
hension of the situation and needs of the schools than 
the trustees. Mr. Graham was not himself a member 
of that convention and was personally no more familiar 
with its discussions than Senator Rutan was, but the 
latter was substantially correct in his statement, for 
while previous to the meeting of the convention the 
principals were opposed to the effort of Professor 
Ehrenfeld to get an appropriation for his school, some 
of them had become convinced, as had Senator Wad- 
dell, of the wisdom of Professor Ehrenfeld 's plan and 
that it would be wise not to interfere with the appro- 
priations that were so well under way, since the pros- 
pect was that they would pass. This sentiment kept 
increasing in the minds of the principals as will appear. 
At this time Senator Allen moved as substitute for 
Senator Delameter's amendment that ''The sum of 
$5,000 be given to each of the State normal schools." 
This amendment having been accepted. Senator Davis 
of Berks suggested to Senator Rutan that if the Senate 
agreed to appropriate $S,ooo to each of the normal 
schools and there should be particular circumstances 
in that senator's district that required $10,000 instead 
of $5,000, that question could then be brought up.'* 
(Leg. Jour., p. 911.) 



The Southwestern Normal School. 47 

To this Senator Rutan replied that he had no objec- 
tion if the Senate now desired to take a vote on the 
proposition of giving $5,000 to each school and then 
let the other come up as a separate proposition, but 
continuing he said: ^ 'While I am up, I just desire to 
say that I am informed by the chairman (Mr. Hewit) 
of the Ways and Means Committee of the House that 
it was the understanding with the superintendents 
[principals] that if it would injure the schools named, 
this proposition should not be pressed.*' (Leg. Jour., 
p. 91 1 .) Thereupon Senator Waddell of West Chester 
district said: ''Mr. Speaker, I had the honor, sir, to 
be in that convention as a trustee from the normal 
school in our district (the First). The proposition 
there was that the bill should be permitted to remain 
as it was passed by the House appropriating $10,000 
to each of these three schools. I discussed that pro- 
position in the convention, and favored the views of 
the gentlemen as they there suggested them, although 
it was against the interest of my own school. We 
discussed the matter for some hours. The majority 
of the convention were against that proposition and 
were in favor of asking the Senate to appropriate 
$5 ,000 to each of all the schools. I voted against the 
proposition, but the majority was in favor of that 
view of the case and finding that to be so, we, who 
were in the minority, moved that it should be made 
unanimous, that the Senate should be asked to appro- 
priate to each school $5,000. A committee was ap- 
pointed with a member from each district and were 
instructed to wait upon the Senate Finance Committee 
and present the views of that convention. They have 
done so, sir, and you have the communication before 
you.** (Leg. Jour., p. 911.) 



48 The Southwestern Normal School. 

This was followed by an aggressive speech from 

Senator Wallace in which he dwelt on the requirements 

Opposition of Senator of the normal school law, on what 

^^^^^^- course alone was proper to be 

pursued, and spoke in a rather contemptuous manner 
of those who had not completed the required buildings 
and yet * 'coolly*' ask the Legislature *'to vote them 
the money that the residents of another locality had 
taken out of their pockets and put in the building/' 
and he asks: ''Is this just? Is it honest?" He pro- 
ceeds: "Hence I shall vote against every one of these 
appropriations; I do not think any of them are justi- 
fied. They are clearly outside of the provision of the 
Act of 1857." (Leg. Jour., p. 911.) 

Senator White of Indiana followed in a direct attack 

on the Southwestern School at California. He said: 

^c, . "Mr. Speaker, there is a little bit 

Opposition of Senator r i • i i 

White to California ot history about the appropria- 

tion of $15,000 to this California 
School, known now as the Southwestern School, that 
it would be well enough for the Senate to know. The 
Senator from Clearfield, Mr. Wallace, correctly stated 
the law. The act of 1857 required certain things to 
be done in the way of private enterprise before the 
school is entitled to $15,000. That is the general 
law .... 

"I have some little feeling about this, because it is a 
matter of principle and fair dealing with the normal 
schools. Now I sympathize entirely with what my 
friend the Senator from Chester [Mr. Waddell] has 
said upon this subject. I was also invited to partici- 
pate in that convention, but had other duties and 
could not be present .... Now as to the normal 



The Southwestern Normal School. 49 

school in Washington County and the special appro- 
priation to the one in Bloomsburg, I have a word to 
say. As the Senator from Clearfield [Mr. Wallace] 
has properly stated, the general law of 1857 provided 
for an allowance of $15,000 to all these normal schools 
—that is the State policy. This normal school at 
California, known as the Southwestern Normal School, 
was started as a private enterprise. At the session 
of 1867 or 1868 [actually 1869], a special act of As- 
sembly was passed allowing the payment of $15,000 
to this school previous to the time contemplated by 
the general law of 1857; that was done in aid of this 
school. I recollect, at that time, the Superintendent 
of Common Schools resisted that legislation as being 
invidious and as marring the harmony of the general 
normal school system. Since that, Mr. Speaker, from 
time to time, acts of Assembly have been passed, 
allowing these infant enterprises the benefit of this 
appropriation of $15,000 as soon as the Superintendent 
of Common Schools had inspected the site and ac- 
cepted it as a State normal school. While this has 
been done, we have never gone beyond the $15,000. 
I submit tonight, that, if you make invidious distinc- 
tions, in view of the friendly legislation which you 
have given these schools heretofore . . . you will mar 
the harmony of our normal school system. I know 
that this effort has not the sympathy of the Common 
School Department of the Commonwealth. I know 
it will excite hard feelings in the breasts of others. 
. . . We have already been kind to this Washington 
County Normal School. I am opposed to this special 
appropriation of $10,000 to the Washington County 
and Bloomsburg Normal Schools.** (Leg. Jour., pp. 
911-912.) 



JO The Southwestern Normal School, 

Senator Buckalew followed: ^'Now, Mr. Speaker, a 

great many members are in favor of voting only for 

Senator Buckalew, in the institutions which are con- 

^^^°^* tained in the House bill ; that was 

the judgment and sentiment of the House. However, 
here in the Senate, some gentlemen suppose that it 
ought to be shaped and passed to give each of these 
schools the sum of $5,000. If that be the general 
sentiment of the Senate, so be it, but let us add that 
to the proposition sent here from the House. . . . 
Then the two Houses will be agreed. In the case of 
these institutions, the money is absolutely needed. 
. . . They are peculiar cases standing upon their 
own merit. The normal schools lie at the bottom, or 
as some might say, at the top of our common school 
system, and their efficient management, conduct, and 
operation will be the main instrument by which our 
common school system will be worked satisfactorily 
to the people. I believe that no portion of the money 
devoted to the purpose of education in this Common- 
wealth is better bestowed than that which is applied 
to this object." (Leg. Jour., p. 912.) 

Mr. White having asked for a division of the proposi- 
tion. Senator Allen said: ^^Mr. Speaker, in offering the 
proposition which I have presented, I have done it 
with no desire to injure the normal school system of 
Pennsylvania. While offering that amendment and 
desiring to act in accordance with the recommendation 
of the committee that was here I have since then been 
informed that the other three institutions named have 
special necessities and I have deemed it but just, sir, 
to accept that as a part of the amendment I have 
offered. ... I hope the Senate will adopt the prop- 
osition as before us.'' (Leg. Jour., p. 912.) 



The Southwestern Normal School. 51 

Senator Wallace spoke again showing at length what 
the provisions of the act of 1857 were and what depart- 
ures from it there had been in making some of the ap- 
propriations and argued very earnestly against any 
further grants of money except in accordance with the 
letter of the law. 

In answer to an inquiry by one of the senators, the 
Speaker said: 'The question before the Senate is on 
the amendment which proposes to give each of the 
normal schools in the State the sum of $5,000." (Leg. 
Jour., p. 912.) 

After brief explanatory remarks by several members, 

Senator Brooke of Delaware County followed in the 

Further antagonism samc line as Senator Wallace, and 

to California School. gp^j^^ particularly against the 

proposed appropriation of $10,000 to the school of 
California, which, although it had received $15,000 
by special favor was **not built yet.'' He proceeded: 
''Now I can feel for this school at California. A small 
village without wealth attempted to get up an institu- 
tion ; the speaker of this body tells us that they have 
taxed themselves an excessive per cent, of all they are 
worth to get an institution where it ought not to have 
been placed because they had not means when they 
began, to meet the requirements of the law, and now 
when they have stuck fast, they come to the Legis- 
lature and ask us to help them out. Why, sir, we 
have instances of that kind all over the State." (Leg. 
Jour., p. 912.) 

At this point. Senator A. A. Purman, of Greene 
Senator Purman in Couuty intervened, sayiug : "Mr. 

behalf of California. Speaker, in regard to the Tenth 
Normal School District at California, I beg leave to 



52 The Southwestern Normal School. 

differ with the Senator from Delaware when he says 
that that school was improperly located. It was lo- 
cated in a beautiful section of the country, in a wealthy 
region of easy access, and they have expended over 
$50,000 in building. . . . They have the school now 
in operation, although they are not in a situation to be 
recognized by the State under the provisions of the 
act of 1857, and this little appropriation is asked for 
the purpose of making this act effective. 

*'We have as much power today by an act of the 
Legislature of this session, to say that we will enlarge 
the appropriation to these normal schools ... as our 
predecessors had to say here that they would give 
only $15,000. The practical question for considera- 
tion as to this school in the Tenth Normal District 
is this: shall we close up the treasury after an expen- 
diture of over $50,000 besides $15,000 by the Com- 
monwealth and allow that school to fail, or will we 
give them the small sum of $10,000 and aid the people 
there to complete this school? So far as the appro- 
priation of $5,000 to all the normal school districts 
in the Commonwealth is concerned, the act of 1857 
presents the terms upon which the money is to be paid, 
and until they bring themselves within the provisions 
of that law the appropriation, of course, can not be 
drawn and when they have brought themselves within 
its provisions, $20,000 is not too much. It has always 
been my opinion that the sum of $15,000 is too small, 
and I am therefore prepared to vote for the proposi- 
tion to appropriate $5,000 to each of the normal dis- 
tricts and an additional $5,000 to the other districts 
named.'* (Leg. Jour., pp. 912-913.) 

In the further discussion that followed, Senator 



The Southwestern Normal School. 53 

Strang of Tioga asked unanimous consent to insert 
the Fifth District Normal School among those in the 
second clause of the proposition, that is, among those 
that were to have $5,000 additional to the $5,000 
contained in the first clause to all the schools. Sena- 
tor White objected, so unanimous consent was not 
granted. Senator White said he was not opposed to 
Senator Strang's having the Mansfield school inserted, 
but that he * 'intended to vote against the whole propo- 
sition.*' (Leg. Jour., p. 913.) 

Senator Buckalew, whose attitude was friendly to 
the cause, and his remarks always illuminating, said 
in regard to the Bloomsburg school: *'I merely wish 
to say that in regard to the school in the Sixth District 
— I have not spoken a word about it yet — in a com- 
paratively poor section of the State the inhabitants 
there have raised over a $100,000; they are in debt, 
and hence the appropriation is an absolute necessity." 
(Leg. Jour., p. 913.) 

Senator White's objection to the inclusion of the 
Fifth District, Mansfield, having been withdrawn, it 
was made part of the second clause of the substitute 
and the vote on it was taken. The yeas and nays 
having been called for, the result was twenty for, and 
nine against, so the second clause of the Senate's 
substitute for the action of the house was adopted. 
(Leg. Jour., pp. 913-914.) This ended the discussion 
which had continued until late in the night and it 
occupies, as abbreviated, some thirteen columns of the 
Legislative Journal. Nor was there any further dis- 
cussion of the subject, the date of final adjournment 
being only a few days ahead. The appropriation bill 
was passed finally in the Senate in the morning session 



54 The Southwestern Normal School. 

of the next day, March 27. (Leg. Jour., p. 913.) 

Senator Rutan immediately telegraphed to Professor 

Ehrenfeld that it had passed the Senate. On the 

Tvr«« .^«.„r*^«n^ «* same day in the afternoon session 

JNon-concurrence or •' 

the House in the Sen- of the House, it refused to concur 

ate*s action, and ap- • i o > • i 

pointment of conference in the benate s action upon the 

committee. 111 • . • / 

normal school appropriations (as 
well as upon some others), and appointed a conference 
committee. (Leg. Jour., p. 954.) 

At the evening session of the Senate, of the same 
date, the House reported to the Senate its non-concur- 
rence in the latter's substitute and amendments and 
its appointment of ^'Messrs. Hewit, Starr, and Mc- 
Connell as a committee of conference to confer with 
a similar committee of the Senate (should the Senate 
appoint such a committee) upon the differences ex- 
isting between the Houses in relation to said bill.*' 

'*0n motion, the Senate insisted on its amendments 
and Messrs. Graham, Brooke, and Purman were ap- 
pointed to confer with the committee of the House 
already appointed.'* Record of these appointments 
may be found on page 936 of the Legislative Journal, 
foot of third column. 

April 2, in the Senate, Mr. Graham, chairman of 
the committee of conference on the appropriation bill, 
reported the result of their joint action. In Legisla- 
tive Journal, page 1050, second column, and on page 
1065, second column, may be found the corresponding 
report of Mr. Hewit to the House; and on page 1157, 
Fmai action of the Legislative Journal, in the appro- 

itL^of HoSfeanT" pnatiou bill as passed finally by 

Senate. both houscs and signed by the 

Governor, we find : * ^Section 50. To the Southwestern 



The Southwestern Normal School. 55 

Normal School of the Tenth District, the Bloomsburg 
Normal School of the Sixth District and to the Mans- 
field Normal School of the Fifth District, each $10,- 
000." 

Thus was restored and finally passed the original 
proposition of Mr. Ehrenfeld with the addition of the 
schools of the Fifth and Sixth Districts, of Mansfield 
and Bloomsburg. How this result was reached in face 
of the strong opposition in the Senate and partly in 
How this result was the House was as follows: The 

reached. normal school principals, with an 

exception, perhaps, became convinced that the plan 
of Professor Ehrenfeld, as presented to the convention 
of March 6, was the only one that had good prospect 
of success, and they were more anxious that some ap- 
propriation should be made and thus change the policy 
of the State towards the normal schools than they 
were as to which school should, at that time, get it. 
But they had little faith or even hope that the measure 
before the Senate would pass, for when the March 
convention met and proposed a substitute to be intro- 
duced in the Senate in lieu of the action taken by the 
House, only three weeks of the legislative session re- 
mained, although it was afterwards extended a week 
longer. In addition to prospective brevity of time, the 
character of the substitute was such as to call for a 
different line of argument from that which had ap- 
pealed successfully to the House; it asked for an 
amount which the people and their representatives 
were not prepared at that time to grant to the normal 
schools. That the prospect of any appropriation grew 
dark soon after the substitute of the March convention 
was thrust in place of the measure of the House, 



56 The Southwestern Normal School. 

appears from Mr. Mickey's telegram, which has been 
given on a previous page. 

On the other hand, in respect of the measure passed 
by the House, the principals of the normal schools 
beheld prospects of success, for they saw not only two 
of the most capable members of the Legislature, but 
the two most influential by position, namely, Mr. 
Hewit, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, 
and Mr. Rutan, Speaker of the Senate, committed 
to it, together constituting a combination that could 
not probably be effected soon again. The result was 
a meeting for consultation of most, if not all of the 
princiapls of the normal schools and of some members 
of both houses at which the action finally proposed 
by the conference committee of the two houses was 
agreed upon. Of this consultation and probable final 
action, Mr. Hewit informed Professor Ehrenfeld, al- 
ready as early as the twentieth of March. This was 
six days before the tardy Senate took up the appro- 
priation bill at all. 

Further account of this matter will best be given by 

citations from the records of the next Legislature, 

r. ^ . ^. namely of 1873. (See Leg. Tour., 

Confirmatory discus- _ '^^ \a .. 

sion from Leg. Jour., 1 873 , p. 805 .) Appropriations to 

^' ' normal schools was the subject 

of discussion; Senator Rutan was protesting against 

the extremes in building to which he thought some 

schools were running. 

Senator Davis (Berks) followed, saying: '*One diffi- 
culty that strikes me in regard to this matter is this: 
that last winter an appropriation of $10,000 was made 
to each of three normal schools. Previous to that, 
the policy had been to treat all these schools alike; 



The Southwestern Normal School. 57 

and that certainly was a fair and proper feeling. The 
other normal schools which did not receive the $10,000 
last winter, come here and now claim that they be put 
on a level with those who did receive it. I think that 
we ought to recognize every claim to an equality, and 
as we cannot undo what was done last winter and get 
back the $10,000 which was appropriated (and which 
should not have been) it seems to me that we are 
bound to treat the other normal schools as the three 
exceptional ones were treated last winter.'* (Leg. 
Jour., 1873, p. 806.) 

Senator Rutan: *^Does not the Senator remember 
the fact that the principals of all the normal schools in 
the Commonwealth waived their claim in favor of these 
three normal schools when this appropriation was 
made?" 

Senator Davis: **I did not know that then. Is the 
senator certain of that now?'' Senator Rutan: ''Yes 
sir. They recommended all the schools, but in case 
an appropriation could not be made to all, they recom- 
mended these three especially." 

Mr. Waddell: 'The Senator from Beaver is partly 
correct and partly in error. The three schools that 
eventually got the appropriation made were originally 
in the appropriation bill, then the other schools met in 
consultation and desired to be joined in, but it was 
thought best at that time not to complicate the matter 
and to allow these three schools to take care of them- 
selves the best they could and the remaining ones 
drew out of the contest." 

In the above statement of Senator Waddell's, there 
is a mistake as to the three schools originally included 
in the House appropriation bill. The Cumberland 



58 The Southwestern Normal School. 

Valley school had been included in the House bill only 
after a contest in which it won by two votes, but in the 
committee of conference, the Mansfield school was 
shown to be greatly needy, and it was substituted in 
place of the school at Shippensburg. Otherwise the 
statement of Senator Waddell is entirely correct. 

Enough has been quoted to explain the success of 
this effort. Its success was at last a surprise to many, 
and nothing but the steadfast adherence to the original 
plan carried it through. The March convention that 
was called for the purpose of defeating the original 
effort was probably the occasion of its success. It 
gave opportunity to the principal of the *' California 
School'* to put his plan before a large number of the 
friends of the normal schools when it not only won the 
approval of Senator Waddell but arrested the thought- 
ful attention of most of the principals, who gradually 
accepted it with the result already seen; and under 
the conviction that it would force the State to a 
change of its policy, which, it has been seen, it accom- 
plished. 

And this was the most important point in the suc- 
cess of the measure, for while its immediate object was 
the relief of the school at California and of those that 
were joined with it, its most valuable result was the 
revolution it effected in the financial attitude of the 
Commonwealth towards these schools, opening the 
way to a proper fostering and larger equipment of 
them in order to accomplish their great aims. 

Accordingly, in the Legislature of 1873, notwith- 
standing the opposition that was made to further 
appropriations, we find that the precedent of the pre- 
vious Legislature was cited, and a much larger appro- 



The Souihewstern Normal School, 59 

priation than that of the previous year was granted. 
(See Leg. Jour., 1873, p. 1309.) 

Opposition that had to be met. 

One of the trustees of normal school, and 

a member of the previous Legislature, and a member of 
the March convention, was very active in attendance 
upon this legislature, and in urging upon those who 
had been his colleagues in the previous legislature, to 
vote against the ^'California'' appropriation. So ac- 
tive and prospectively hurtful was his activity, that 
Hon. A. J. Buffington, formerly a teacher in the school 
at California, also county superintendent and a mem- 
ber of the preceding legislature from Washington 
County, went along with Mr. Ehrenfeld on one of his 
trips to Harrisburg, and urged his former colleague to 
*'take his hands off and go home,'' which he agreed to 
do. There was still some opposition from the same 
direction but it was not open, and meanwhile a change 
was going on in the mind of Superintendent Wicker- 
sham himself as he closely, and at last, sympathetically 
followed Mr. Ehrenf eld's effort in the Legislature; 
and he well knew what antagonistic influences had 
to be overcome by him ; and when at a normal school 
meeting at Harrisburg, some months afterward, the 
principal of one of the other schools, that likewise got 
an appropriation along with the California school, 
was speaking rather largely of what they had done in 
the matter of getting the appropriation passed, Mr. 
Wickersham, who knew from many years' experience 
what it meant to get appropriations through the Legis- 
lature and having known from the beginning that Mr. 



6o The Southwestern Normal School. 

Ehrenfeld had started this one, and had effected 
the combination that carried it to success, interrupting 
him, said rather bluntly: ^^You got your appropriation 
through simply by taking hold of Professor Ehren- 
feld 's coat tails and getting pulled through by him.*' 

While some history is writing here, it may be instruc- 
tive to include some other things that the effort had 
to encounter. 

One of these was the fact that the '* California 
School'* had been given the $15,000 in 1869, as it was 
hotly contended, before it was entitled to receive such 
appropriation. This may be seen by recurring to the 
speeches of some of the senators, as already cited, 
whose irritation was not all suppressed. This school 
was an institution **non grata,'* not only as to this 
point as alleged, of its not having been entitled to the 
former appropriation, but there seemed to be some 
feeling against the town itself. One member came to 
Professor Ehrenfeld and said: *^I am willing to do 
anything for you personally, but I don't care a penny 
for your town of California." To which Mr. Ehren- 
feld replied that he had no responsibility for the name 
of the town and did not like it any better than he did, 
but that if he wanted to do him a personal favor, 
he should suppress his feeling on that point and help 
get the appropriation to the school, and this he did. 

Perhaps while this account is being written another 
thing ought to be included here. One of the principals 
of the normal schools, who, at first, not only took 
offense at the effort of the Southwestern School at 
California to get an appropriation for itself, but was 
also offended at the success of the effort from the start, 
intimated in an educational journal of which he was 



The Southwestern Normal School. 6i 

editor, that money had been used to obtain the favor- 
able action. It would not be worth while to speak of 
this if it had not been published and the paper itself 
is probably on file in the school of which he was then 
principal. Those who know anything of the financial 
stress upon this institution at the time, need not be 
told of the absurdity of the suggestion. The fact was 
that the board raised $50 and gave it to Professor 
Ehrenfeld to pay his railroad fare and hotel bills. 
This was the entire amount of money he received for 
use in his effort to get an appropriation, and with this 
he made three visits to the Legislature. 

The fact was that Mr. Ehrenfeld had a number of 
personal friends in that Legislature, and among them 
several of unusual ability, and what was still more 
important was the fact of their occupancy of positions 
in both the Senate and the House that made their 
influence very effective. These men perhaps without 
exception fell in with Professor Ehrenfeld's ideas in 
regard to the aims and necessities of the normal schools 
and he was thus able to effect a combination that grew 
in strength from the beginning and that triumphed in 
the end. This was the only bribery that was used. 
This was possible also because Dr. Wickersham had 
promised Mr. Ehrenfeld that he would not oppose his 
effort though, at that time, against his own views. 

Superintendent Wickersham. 

A word ought to be said at this point relative to Dr. 
Wickersham. As already stated, the effort to obtain 
additional appropriations from the State was contrary 
to his ideas, and he was on record against it, and the 



62 The Southwestern Normal School. 

reader of the foregoing debate in the Senate will recall 
the use of that fact in the arguments of two senators 
against granting this appropriation. 

It was no pleasant thing for Superintendent Wicker- 
sham to be neutral during those four or five weeks. 
He had been very frank with Professor Ehrenfeld as to 
his own views but said he would not oppose his effort 
to get an appropriation. To keep that voluntary- 
promise against his own record and especially against 
the influences around him at Lancaster, and of his 
own former school, not to speak of influential members 
of the Senate, would have been too much for a weaker 
man. 

Senator A. A. Purman. 

While many things have been omitted from this 
narrative for the sake of brevity, it would not seem 
proper to overlook the helpful attitude of Senator A. 
A. Purman, of Greene County. Besides speaking a 
good word for the town of California when in the 
course of the discussion such word was seriously 
needed, he did not suffer himself to be hampered in 
action on the proposed appropriations by the con- 
ditions which had been imposed upon the normal 
schools at the time when the act authorizing them was 
passed, nor by the limited conceptions entertained at 
that time in the Legislature of what might become 
necessary in the course of their growth. He had a 
forward look as to their future needs, while some 
others among the most influential members of the 
Senate persistently, and no doubt honestly, strove 
to prevent any appropriations additional to the 
amounts formerly thought of as the maximum of what 




HON. BENJAMIN L HEWIT. 
June 4. 1833-MARCH lO. 1899. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 63 

the schools ought to obtain from the State. Senator 
Purman did not think that the action of a previous 
Legislature should put any bonds upon those coming 
after, and accordingly he said, among other things 
already quoted: 'We have as much power today by 
an act of the Legislature of this session to say that 
we will enlarge the appropriation to these normal 
schools as our predecessors had, that they would give 
only $15,000,*' etc. Mr. Purman's statement sounded 
an inspiriting note in the discussion. 

Mr. Benj. L. Hewit. 

A further word of Mr. Hewit Without his watch- 
ful forethought and legislative skill, together with the 
cooperation of Senator Rutan, the measure could not 
have survived the opposition to it and have come up 
safely out of the conference committee or, for that 
matter, have gotten into the conference committee 
at all. To him, more than to any other member or 
members was due the survival of the original section 
making the appropriation, as also its final passage. 
He did not, however, desire to have the matter much 
spoken of; and, indeed, to one looking forward to 
political advancement, devotion to the normal schools 
was not, at that time, helpful. To this reticence it 
was owing that the normal schools did not learn who 
had been their so efficient friend. 

It should be mentioned that Hon. Geo. V. Lawrence, 
at that tme in Congress but formerly and afterwards 
again in the State Senate, advised and supported his 
successor. Senator Rutan, in our favor. 

Others from the ''California school*' district, spoken 
of in Professor Hertzog's article, namely, Messrs. 



64 The Southwestern Normal School. 

Billingsley and Anderson, did their good work in after 
years when they had been chosen to the Legislature 
and their opportunity came. 

The success of the appeal to the Legislature brought 
great relief and encouragement to the Southwestern 
Normal School and the board of trustees immediately 
took measures looking to the erection of the necessary 
buildings. Accordingly, in April, 1872, the board ap- 
pointed W. W. Jackman to ascertain cost of material, 
etc., for the new building and to make contract for 
foundation stone. 

But after this action had been taken, the outlook for 
early addition of dormitories or even of one was still 
beclouded. The appropriation of $10,000 was not 
equal to the debts already upon the property, so that 
much more money was needed in order to proceed 
with the needed buildings. 

Not delaying to dwell on the situation in further 
detail, we note the action of the board, February 3, 
1873, when they directed the finance committee to 
make a report on the money situation which report 
was made at the next monthly meeting, March 3, 1873. 
(Minutes, p. 161.) The report of the finance com- 
mittee is embraced in the following resolutions: 

1. Resolvedy that the board of trustees issue bonds for the 
amount of $15,000 to be a first mortgage in the normal school 
property, to run from five to fifteen years with interest at 
eight per cent, per annum, to be paid semi-annually. 

2. That the board issue bonds for the additional amount 
of $15,000 to be a second mortgage on the normal school 
property, also to draw eight per cent, per annum, to be paid 
semi-annually; these second mortgage bonds to run from five 
to twenty years and to be guaranteed by members of the 



The Southwestern Normal School. 65 

board of trustees and other friends of the institution indi- 
vidually. 

The resolution was discussed at some length when it was 
moved that action on the above resolution be suspended till 
the next meeting. It was carried. 

Minutes of next meeting, March 10, 1873 (Minutes, 
p. 162): 

*The resolution laid over at our last meeting was 
then taken up and passed unanimously. . . . Professor 
Ehrenfeld was appointed to inquire into the legal 
points relating to the issue of the bonds." 

Next meeting, minutes of March 17, 1873 (Minutes, 
p. 163) say: **. . . Professor Ehrenfeld made a care- 
fully prepared report as to the legal points relating to 
the issue of bonds. 

''Moved and carried that Professor Ehrenfeld be 
directed to open correspondence with a view to obtain 
a supplement to our charter to enable us to borrow 
money at eight per cent, per annum." 

Mr. Ehrenfeld proceeded immediately in the matter 
of obtaining the enactment of the proposed supple- 
ment to the charter and after corresponding with our 
Senator J. S. Rutan, he, under direction of the board, 
and in consultation with them, drew up and sent the 
senator a draft of the desired act. Mr. Rutan prompt- 
ly introduced the matter in the Legislature and by 
the tenth of April, within a little over three weeks, the 
proposed act was passed and was signed by the Gover- 
nor as it may be found in Pamphlet Laws, 1 873 , page 
774, as follows: 

'*No. 89 Supplement .... 

To an act incorporating the Southwestern Normal College: 
6 



66 The Southwestern Normal School. 

Be it enacted, etc., . . . that the board of trustees of the 
Southwestern Normal College be empowered to borrow the 
money authorized by the charter at a rate of interest not 
exceedinging eight per cent, per annum and to issue bonds 
therefor with or without coupons, which shall be exempt from 
taxation except for state purposes. 
Approved the Tenth day of April, A. D. 1873. 

J. F. Hartranft. 

This was the legislation authorizing a loan on a first 
mortgage, a:t eight per cent., etc., on which bonds, to 
the amount of $16,000 were sold,'* as stated in the 
paragraph quoted above from Professor Hertzog's 
article. It is proper to insert here a copy of the letter 
of those bonds: 

Southwestern Normal College, 

State of Pennsylvania. 

Know all men by these presents, that the Southwestern 
Normal College of the Tenth Normal District of the State 
of Pennsylvania, in the borough of California, County of 
Washington, is indebted to C. L. Ehrenfeld or bearer in the 
sum of . . . dollars, the same being a first mortgage on said 
College which the Trustees of said college promise to pay in 
fifteen years with the privilege of paying the same in five 
years after date at the First National Bank of Brownsville 
with interest at the rate of eight per cent, per annum, payable 
semi-annually at said Bank on the first days of June and 
December in each year, on the presentation of the proper 
coupon for the same, for which payment of principal and inter- 
est, well and truly to be made the faith, property, and income 
of said College are hereby pledged under the authority granted 
by an act of Assembly to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 
entitled an act to enable the Trustees of Southwestern Normal 
College to borrow money and issue bonds approved April 10, 
1868 and in pursuance of a resolution of the Board of Trustees 



The Southwestern Normal School. 67 

of said College adopted at a meeting thereof on the third day 
of March, 1873 and entered on their minutes of that date. 

The bond, although legal by its inclusion of the 
resolution of March 3, 1873, on which the act of the 
Legislature of April 10, 1873, supplementary to the 
charter, was obtained authorizing the borrowing of 
the money designated in the charter itself and to issue 
bonds therefor, etc., ought, nevertheless, to have in- 
cluded the reference to the supplementary act which 
was necessary to **empower them to borrow the money 
authorized by the charter and to issue bonds therefor.'* 

The occurrence of the name of Mr. Ehrenfeld in 
the body of the bond was there without his knowledge 
and explained by Mr. Dixon's saying that some name 
had to be inserted and he thought as Mr. Ehrenfeld 
had been the instrument in getting the Legislative 
authority to issue the bonds it was fitting that his 
name should go in. 

Of the bonds authorized by the above quoted sup- 
plementary legislation, enough were at length sold to 
enable the trustees to proceed with the work of build- 
ing, but the sale of the bonds was not effected as easily 
as was anticipated, but proved a decidedly ''uphill 
business.'' The bonds did not appeal to persons who 
had money, as was hoped. After different persons 
had been appointed as agents to sell the bonds, and 
having met with poor success, we read in the minutes 
of the board of September 22, 1873, p. 170, as follows: 
''After a full discussion of our financial condition, it 
was resolved that Mr. A. P. Smith should devote his 
entire time during the next week to the sa'e of bonds 
and that we meet to hear his report September 29." 



68 The Southwestern Normal School. 

But there was no meeting on September 29, and we 
find it stated in the minutes of October 6, p. 170, that 
''the meeting for September 29 was deferred because 
Mr. Smith was not ready to report." But he "re- 
ported progress and hoped at an early date to raise 
the full amount of funds required.** This hope was, 
however, not realized, and it was not till December 15 
that he made his report. At the meeting of that date, 
we read, p. 174, as follows: ''The financial question 
was then considered. The financial agent, A. P. 
Smith, said the prospect was not favorable, that but 
little additional subscription had been taken on the 
second mortgage.'* The record of the minutes pro- 
ceeds: "It was now evident if the work was to go for- 
ward at all, the trustees would have to shoulder the 
responsibility. AH present seemed to comprehend 
this, but many felt, taking into account what they 
had done in previous donations and loans, together 
with the promise already given in the subscription to 
the present loan, that it was not possible for them to 
do more. But, promised aid from the State and hope 
of speedy recognition prevailed at last, after one of 
the most exciting and eventful scenes the board has 
ever witnessed. From $7,750 the loan went up to 
$14,300 and the remaining $700 was to be distributed 
among the members if not otherwise secured soon. 
All seemed to breathe easier after this, for it was felt 
that while fresh responsibility had been assumed, the 
final success was assured.** 

Success was assured; the work went on; the north 
dormitory was completed and furnished. The house- 
hold department was installed and recognition ob- 
tained by the State on the twenty-sixth of May, 1874. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 69 

A great deal is omitted here that cannot be included 
in this sketch. 

A senior class was formed, but in the long waiting 
for recognition, the students generally who had hoped 
to enter a graduating class had left and only two re- 
mained who were prepared to enter. The next class 
had six and the third one nine, among whom were the 
present Dr. J. B. Smith, of the faculty of the school, 
and the late lamented Professor Wilbur S. Jackman, 
Dean of the School of Education, founded by Mrs. 
Emmons Blaine, and connected with the University of 
Chicago. 

Before this third class was graduated, Mr. Ehren- 
feld was asked to enter the School Department of the 
State and act as its financial secretary, but ^^not to 
leave the school until a successor had been elected.*' 
Professor George P. Beard was chosen. Mr. Ehren- 
feld went to Harrisburg with his family, on the second 
of February, 1877, and to his desk in the Department 
of Public Instruction. 

The nucleus of a library was begun by the purchase 
of a copy of Appleton^s New American Cyclopedia 
and other volumes. There was no library whatever 
when Mr. Ehrenfeld came. The trustees had now 
enough to do to maintain the existence of the insti- 
tution. 

Though Mr. Ehrenfeld was no longer in connection 
with the school at California, he was able to render 
it another valuable service. When the State Com- 
mission, consisting of the superintendent of Public 
Instruction, the Governor and the Attorney General, 
were making distribution of the money appropriated 
by the Legislature, and the several schools were each 



70 The Southwestern Normal School, 

striving for as large a share of it as they could obtain, 
Mr. Ehrenfeld was consulted by the commission as to 
the needs of the school of California, and he was able 
to convince them that any further reduction in the 
amount to that school was not to be advised, and he 
was instrumental in preventing a further cut of at 
least $500 or $1,000 in the amount allotted. 

Another point yet before ending this section of our 
history. In the historical article above referred to 
occurs the following statement: **At the regular meet- 
ing in June, the board authorized the expenditure of 
$150 in the purchase of books and apparatus, and 
this was the beginning of the present grand library of the 
school y 

The date of that meeting was June 5, 1865. The 
author of the article was in some way misled in the 
statement that that was the beginning of the present 
library of the school. This is altogether an error. 
Going back in the records, it is found that on January 
28, preceding, a committee on library and apparatus 
had been appointed and consisted of Messrs. J. C. 
Gilchrist, Job Johnson and W. N. Hull. 

March 6, 1865, minutes say: ''Report of committee 
on library received and committee continued. On 
motion the entire management of library was given 
to the committee on the same, with instructions to 
prepare rules." 

April J, following, the minutes say: * 'Moved and 
carried that report of committee on library be received 
and the committee discharged. Moved that the com- 
^ mittee present its bills to the committee on accounts 
and that said account committee draw an order for 
the amount.'* 



The Southwestern Normal School. 71 

The word * ^discharged'' above must have been in- 
advertently written for continued, for the committee 
was continued. 

May J, following, the minutes say: ^'It was moved 
that the committee on library be instructed to expend 
$100 for books and apparatus as soon as present 
liabilities are liquidated. The motion was made the 
special order of the next meeting.*' 

June 5, 1865 J minutes say: *^It was moved and 
carried that the motion of the library committee be 
taken up. It was moved that the original motion be 
amended by increasing the amount from $100 to $150. 
Carried. This motion then passed as amended." 

October 2, 1865, we read in minutes: ^^Reports of 
committee on library and on instruction received and 
accepted." There is no record of the reports. 

Eight months afterwards. 

June 4, i866y minutes say: * ^Committee on library 
reported that it is still in existence and is paying some 
of last year's expenses. Estimated value of library 
at present, $150." 

September j, 1866: * 'Committee on library and in- 
struction and apparatus reported." No record of any 
report. 

May 6y 1867, minutes say: * 'Committee on library 
and instruction (report) that there is a room obtained 
and the library in use." 

(Previously, it had been reported that there was no 
room nor shelves for the library.) 

April 20 y 1868 y minutes say: ''Report of committee 
on library was made by the chairman, that the library 
was not in full use for want of a suitable room, but 
that it would be preserved and used as far as possible. 



72 The Southwestern Normal School. 

June I, 1868, minutes say: ''Committee on library 
reported that owing to the want of a suitable room no 
public library could at present be kept." 

This seems to have been the last reference made in 
the minutes to that collection of books. Of course, 
there could have been but a small number of volumes. 

Whatever may have been the fate of that library, 
it does not appear that it was carried along when the 
school was transferred to the new normal building 
from the old ''Seminary Hall.'' There was no library 
whatever at the school when the new principal came 
in July, 1 871. In due time he put his own private 
library in his office in the normal college building, and 
that was the only library there was in the school until 
after the Southwestern Normal College became the 
"Southwestern Normal School'* May 26, 1874— in 
other words the State Normal School of the Tenth 
District. 

Among the important things undertaken immedi- 
ately after "recognition," was the matter of a normal 
school library. 

A subscription was taken and the paper circulated 
chiefly by T. R. Wakefield, then a student, and others, 
and enough was in a short time contributed by the 
students and teachers to purchase Appleton's Ameri- 
can Cyclopedia and a considerable number of other 
valuable books, especially works of reference. 

This collection of books, kept at first in room "M," 
was, it seems, afterwards divided between the two 
literary societies, but subsequently the books were all 
placed together again and have probably remained so; 
and this was the beginning of the present library of 
the Southwestern Normal School. 



The Southwestern Normal School, 73 

Other facts and important events in this history 
must await a later pen. 

The above sketch, though somewhat lengthy in 
parts, is, nevertheless, in fact, a condensed account 
of the material— not the scholastic —events included 
in the time it covers, that is, the time of the incumb- 
ency of Professor Ehrenfeld. 



APPENDIX. 

(The writer is indebted to the courtesy of Dr. J. P. 
McCaskey, Lancaster, Pa., for a copy of the Pennsyl- 
vania School Journal of September, 1876, containing 
the report of the Proceedings of the State Teachers' 
Association at West Chester from Tuesday, August 
8, to Thursday, August 10, inclusive, which is used in 
the following pages.) 

The inclusion of what follows in an appendix to the 
foregoing chapter of history has been decided upon 
rather by the earnest advice of other than the writer's 
own judgment. It is thought to be valuable as throw- 
ing light upon the situation of the normal schools at 
that time and as not wanting in pertinence to their 
present condition and needs. 

The following paper was read by the author, the 
principal of the normal school at California, Pa. He 
had been especially appointed to prepare such paper 
because of the hampered conditions of those institu- 
tions; and the still unremedied conditions have been 
the occasion of advising the inclusion of the paper in 
the fourth-coming volume. 

MR. EHRENFELD'S ADDRESS. 

State Normal Schools. 

'The State of Pennsylvania keeps school. The 
common or free schools are a state institution. They 
differ in their origin from the academies, colleges, theo- 
logical, medical and law schools. These, like rail- 
roads, agricultural societies, coal companies and the 

74 



The Southwestern Normal School. 75 

like, are established by individuals, associations or 
corporations, but the common schools are established, 
instituted, supported, kept by the State. Tracing 
their constitutional history, we find in the constitution 
of Pennsylvania, as adopted in 1776, the following 
article: *A school or schools shall be established in 
each county by the Legislature for the convenient 
instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, 
paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct 
youth at low prices/ 

**This, it is seen, was not yet the free school, though 
it is foreshadowed; but the constitution as amended 
in 1790, Art. VIL, reads: 'The Legislature shall as 
soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for the 
establishment of schools throughout the State, in such 
manner that the poor may be taught gratis,^ This 
is quite an advance upon the last. The constitution, 
as amended in 1838, has the same article. The pres- 
ent constitution, Art. X., Sec. i, reads: The gen- 
eral assembly shall provide for the maintenance and 
support of a thorough and efficient system of public 
schools wherein all the children of this common- 
wealth above the age of six years may be educated, 
and shall appropriate at least one million dollars each 
year for that purpose.' 

''Here we have the full fledged Free or Common 
Schools. They have long since been established and 
provided for by statute in accordance with these provi- 
sions of the constitution. Clearly, the common or 
free school is a state institution. They are not some- 
thing merely which the state allows or only authorizes: 
it establishes them, it gives them existence. The State 
then having begotten them, must see to it that they 



76 The Southwestern Normal School. 

are rightly conducted and maintained: and the stat- 
utes relating to the common schools, give evidence in 
all their parts, that the State feels itself obliged to 
them, bound in obligation to them as parents to chil- 
dren. 

**Now, there are many things needful for the right 
conduct of the schools, but one thing is needful be- 
yond all others. There may be poor houses and yet 
they may succeed ; there may be poor text-books and 
yet no failure in the schools; there may be lack of ap- 
paratus and want of public spirit, and the school may 
still do good work; but if the teacher be incompe- 
tent, then is the whole institution a failure. As is the 
teacher so is the school. The Pennsylvania Railroad 
might as well attempt to run its trains with incompe- 
tent engineers, or the steamship companies their ves- 
sels over the ocean with bungling pilots and captains 
as to attempt carrying on the common schools without 
skilled teachers. And the peril to humanity in the 
latter case is incalculably greater. 

''Whence may competent teachers be obtained? 
Are they like poets, 'born not made' ? and, unlike poets, 
born to the number of many thousands every year, 
to take the places that need to be annually filled in 
the district schools? Nearly 20,000 teachers are re- 
quired for the common schools of this state. Can 
we go out every autumn and pick them up in suffi- 
cient numbers, as the Israelites went out of a morning 
and picked up the manna, dropped down from heaven? 
Can anything like an adequate number of competent 
teachers— teachers professionally qualified for 'this 
finest art of modern life,' be supplied without agen- 
cies to prepare them, without institutions to train 



The Southwestern Normal School. 77 

men and women for the work? There are those who 
think they can; who think they can be secured in 
sufficient numbers — young men and young women, 
from the farms and dairies, from the workshops, from 
private schools, academies, and colleges. This was 
the way at one time. 

*Tifty years since there were no normal schools in 
this country, and one hundred and fifty years ago the 
idea of normal schools, so far as we know, had not 
entered into the mind of any one. And there are 
always those who think an institution is not needed, 
simply because the world at one time got along without 
it. They do not consider that new times have their 
new needs and call for new institutions. They do not 
recognize the fact that as each individual, each mem- 
ber of the human family, is subject to the law of growth 
and passes from the period of childhood and few wants 
into the time of adult life and manifold necessities, 
so the race itself is personal and individual, has its 
law of growth, is ever passing out of its narrower into 
its larger self; is ever unfolding new needs, and, from 
age to age, is reaching out farther and making larger 
demands on itself, on nature, on the universe. 

'^Humanity is a seed with untold germinal forces in 
it. Some have unfolded, others yet, doubtless, lie hid- 
den and quiet, awaiting their time. The time is in the 
life of the tree when its structure is very simple, but 
the day comes when it must put forth its great 
branches ; afterwards when it must furnish the material 
for blossom and for the succeeding yet greater de- 
mands, for the fruit and the energy to ripen it. Time 
is in the life of the corn when it is the simple blade, 
but the days come when it must build its stalk strong; 



78 The Southwestern Normal School. 

afterwards as its Inner life unfolds, it must supply the 
substance for the ear and institute the husk, to house 
and protect it till it is perfected. New wants arise, 
other and larger demands are made and new functions 
must be performed. So, if the idea of progress is not 
a delusion, as the human tree grows the time comes 
from period to period when new demands are made 
of the race; when new ideas must be realized; when 
new institutions are needed and must be established. 
And to oppose these demands, or to try and get along 
without them, is as foolish as it would be in the corn 
to cry out against instituting the ear and its husk, be- 
cause it has got along very well in its previous history 
without either. 

^Trom Adam until now new times have quickened 
new activities, and the unfolding activities of the 
race have created new times, and these have de- 
manded new institutions; and so it will be through 
the decades and centuries to come. Neither can any 
prophet foretell what bloom and fruit will yet appear 
on the human tree— on the tree Igdrasil, whose top- 
most boughs, in the Scandinavian story, eternally 
dance in the light of heaven— no prophet can foresee 
what bloom and fruit will yet appear in those branches 
in* the spring-times and summers of the unfolding 
cycles of the future. 

''Now, in the course of human progress or of the 
race's ongoing, the time came that quickened the 
dormant idea of universal education and it rose into 
consciousness. This occurred in modern times: it is 
a modern idea. The thought was in individual minds 
long enough ago ; it is expressed in some of the oldest 
of the sacred Scriptures ; but it had no wide nor prac- 



The Southwestern Normal School. 79 

tical recognition in the common consciousness till in 
recent times. The common or free school of which we 
speak is the idea made actual. The time was when 
the world got along without the common school, but 
to oppose it therefore would be like the tree's opposing 
its own blossom and fruit. 

**But the common school is accepted, is accepted 
long since even by the politician, who is the last to 
accept a new idea. It is, as we have seen, an institu- 
tion established, supported, kept by the state. But 
the effort to establish and put in operation the common 
schools quickened and waked into consciousness an- 
other idea, that of the teacher. Not that the world 
had no teachers before. The teacher as an announcer 
of new truth, as the bringer forth of original things, 
as an oracle— these the world has had of old. Moses, 
Isaiah, above all Jesus of Nazareth, and again Socrates, 
Plato and other names of power— but the teacher as 
one who takes the things of knowledge and of science, 
the things revealed by the former class of teachers, 
and communicates them to the youth of the land ; who 
drills them into their minds ; who broods over the souls 
of his pupils with a tender, fruitful and continuous 
power, and quickens their latent energies into activity 
—of him the world in former times had no conscious 
thought. Of the teacher, therefore, as a universal 
factor in the state, more needful than ships and armies, 
than warriors, legislatures and kings; still further, of 
the teacher in any such numbers, and of trained skill 
in the profession — and of so important a profession — 
the idea has come into conscious recognition so late as 
since the common school, though necessarily evoked 
by the emergence and attempted realization of that. 



8o The Southwestern Normal School. 

"This idea of the profession of teaching is fairly in 
the thought of to-day, but it has been, as yet, only 
partially realized in practice. We are still only in 
the process of getting the grand idea embodied in fact. 
Up to date, teachers have been, as already stated, 
partly picked up, partly gathered from private schools 
and out of other professions, with more recently a 
sprinkling from the normal schools; but we wish to 
reach the day when there shall be not only a few good 
teachers as there have always been, long before normal 
schools or even colleges were thought of, when the 
instruction of our children shall be in the hands of a 
skilled army of teachers, all of whom shall enter the 
profession with conscious skill and therefore with con- 
scious power; who shall press to their vast undertaking 
as the armies of Moltke moved against Weissenburg 
and Worth, against Metz, Gravellote and Sedan. 

"The day of the teacher is at hand. More than 
ever *the schoolmaster is abroad.' He is called for 
as never before, and by the tens of thousands. The 
number required for the common schools of our state 
equals, I apprehend, if it does not exceed the number 
of ministers of all the different religious denominations 
added to the lawyers and physicians. Though called 
for so numerously, he is scanned as never before. 
The people are getting practical on the subject. They 
are getting alive to the fact that persons are not more 
qualified to teach without training for the profession 
than young men and young women would be to prac- 
tice medicine or law without being trained for it. 
They are considering how solemn and intrinsic the 
work is; coming to perceive that it requires a knowl- 
edge of the ways of children, a clear apprehension of 



The Southwestern Normal School. 8i 

the best methods of conducting the mind into the 
knowledge of the things to be learned, moreover that 
it asks a cultured soul; a patient and subdued yet 
quick and courageous spirit; and that these qualities 
and this skill cannot be obtained in any wide or ade- 
quate measure without normal schools. And we must 
have them, no matter how the world did without them 
once. To refuse them now would be as if the corn 
should refuse to put forth the ear or the tree to follow 
up the blossom with the fruit. To refuse them would 
be to undo the common schools which have developed 
the necessity of the normal schools. We must have 
them. This way lies destiny. This way move the 
stars in our sky. 

*'Well, you have the normal schools, why are you 
not satisfied? 

''Yes, we have them, it is true. The need of them 
was recognized in our State more than a score of years 
ago, and the Legislature was prevailed upon to pass 
an act establishing them in 1857. Rather an act al- 
lowing them to be established, but particularizing the 
requirements needful for recognition of them by the 
State. I think no one will demur if I say that the 
Legislature did not pass the act because it was an idea 
in their conscious thought, pressing upward for birth, 
but the matter was brought (I need not say by whom) 
to the attention of the leading members of the Legis- 
lature and urged upon them— who then secured the 
passage of the act. 

''But the State in this action had but the dimmest 

apprehension of what it was doing; nor has it either 

in respect of the body of the people or in its legislative 

capacity, ever yet apprehended the idea of the normal 

7 



82 The Southwestern Normal School. 

schools in anything like its (the idea's) full scope; 
nor has it yet consciously felt the squeeze of the logic 
that necessitates them or the obligation they throw 
back upon the State since they have come into exis- 
tence under the law. They have been and are still, 
to a large extent, regarded as if they were something 
to which the State owed no duty: as if they were 
foreign to the legislative interests of the Common- 
wealth and which had no claim upon it for help. 
They are looked upon as if the question of normal 
schools were still an open question with the world, 
whereas it is a question settled long ago, as much so as 
the idea of the common schools themselves. Now, I 
am not ignorant of what the State has done, nor 
coldly insensible to it; and great progress has been 
made in the last jfive years, but I am ready to say 
with emphasis that the State will never have fulfilled 
its duty in this matter till it has planned the normal 
schools on ample pecuniary basis and sees to it that 
they are sufficiently equipped for the right perform- 
ance of their work. 

''The State owes this to itself and to its free schools: 
owes it to itself in a way more vital than any of us 
realize. It must take hold as it has never done before. 
Its past attitude will not do. The past policy (and I 
am not arraigning any one; it is probable that the 
past policy was the only one possible) —the past policy 
may sometime, in the future, secure us normal schools 
with sufficient equipment, but it will be after the waste 
of what is infinitely more precious than money, time, 
and the fine energies of noble men who are perishing 
in the toil. 

'The law makes such requirements in buildings and 



The Southwestern Normal School. 83 

amount of ground as befits such institutions ; but with- 
out assistance from the state the number of acres re- 
quired would of itself have kept them away from the 
cities and large towns where land is dear, but where 
there is wealth and intelligence, and would have re- 
sulted in locating them in the country, at villages, 
where land is cheap, but where there is not sufficient 
intelligence nor capital. This has been the case, at 
least with most of them. The consequence has been 
that here were great schools to be founded in and by 
communities where they had neither the money nor 
any just conception of the idea of the schools. The 
project was in each case undertaken and the work 
got under, way, but the efforts remind one of the at- 
tempt to haul a six-horse load with a team of little 
ponies, and some of them false; after much talking, 
urging and jerking, the load got started and dragged 
forward to rising grade, and then the melancholy fact 
became evident that the force, the means, was utterly 
inadequate. 

^The legitimate result was an appeal to the State, 
and it answered the appeal ; but so insufficiently, with 
such uncertainty of appropriation, and during the last 
two years, with such utter diasppointment— while yet 
the prospect of help was so promising, that men put 
in still more of their means in the assurance of relief, 
and then, finally, by the Governor's veto of the appro- 
priations taking away the food already spread before 
starving men— as to put the few faithful souls who 
took the burdens on their shoulders under a stress too 
grievous to be borne, and some of the schools into peril, 
out of which they may not all escape. 

^'But I have no inclination nor disposition to dwell 



84 The Southwestern Normal School. 

upon this part of the subject. I answer then again, 
Yes, we have the normal schools; we are sorely con- 
scious of that fact, but we have them in no satisfac- 
tory condition. One, two, or three perhaps— owe es- 
pecially—got under way so early and under such 
auspices that what I have said does not apply; but I 
am speaking of the present average condition of them. 
Their situation ought not to be satisfactory to the 
State, it cannot be endured by those who are uphold- 
ing them, and it is painful to all who have a proper 
conception of the high equipment and excellence that 
is their aim. 

'This condition of things must be remedied, and it 
rests on the State to do it. And there should be no 
halting about it but a laying hold of the matter with 
both hands. It is time for the State in its legislative 
capacity to take the interests of these institutions into 
new, careful, patient and thorough consideration, and 
not lay the matter down until it has a clear apprehen- 
sion of their original idea and function ; of the State's 
relationship to them according to the law as it stands ; 
of their present condition and necessities; and then 
determine what improvements are needed in their 
statutory relations to the State and what appropria- 
tions are requisite to lift them out of their embarrass- 
ments and put them into right equipment and endow- 
ment for their work. 

**This will take time and wise deliberation. It will 
require considerable appropriations but not nearly as 
great as some other states have made and are making. 
The property of our normal schools according to last 
year's report is valued at about $1,200,000. Of this 
the state has appropriated $250,000, only a little over 



The Southwestern Normal School. 85 

one fifth of the whole amount. That amount more 
will put them in easy condition. But if the State 
should ultimately have to appropriate twice that or 
altogether a million, rightly to capacitate them for 
their work, it would be a royal investment, and would 
not exceed or equal what some of our sister states are 
doing or have done in the same cause. 

*'By taking such hold of them the state will, in a 
closer relationship to them, be able to correct evils 
that have been complained of, while, in the easier 
condition of the Staters assistance, others will correct 
themselves. The schools can, and doubtless will, then 
be more entirely confined to their professional work 
of training teachers; though I do not see the fairness 
of the cry against their doing academic work, when all 
around some of them at least the academies and col- 
leges have normal departments attached and claim to 
do that special work. This is especially so in my 
own district. Some of them may have been mis- 
managed. It could hardly be otherwise under all 
the circumstances of their origin and their indifferent 
relationship to the state. But a wiser policy may 
remedy the past and avert similar evils in the future. 

'It is urged that the provision of the law appropri- 
ating the half dollar per week and the fifty dollars 
at graduation to those who pledge themselves to teach, 
is an unwise provision. I have the conceit that I 
could myself improve that clause of the law, but that 
the State has suffered any serious loss from the viola- 
tion of their pledges by any considerable number of 
those who gave them, I am convinced, after a good 
deal of investigation, is a mistake. The statistics on 
the subject, I am sure, will compare favorably with 



86 The Southwestern Normal School. 

those of religious societies who support beneficiaries 
and especially with the statistics of the United States 
naval and military schools. 

**Also, it is urged that there are too many of them. 
This may be so. The law originally provided for 
twelve, and the Legislature of 1873-74 divided one 
of the districts, making provision for thirteen. Nine 
are in operation, and they are by no means too many 
to do the work needed in our great Commonwealth. 
Nor is their number too great for the State to support: 
nor do I believe there will be any trouble in that 
particular when the state once fully rouses itself to 
the measure of the cause. The experience of New 
York on the subject of few or many schools is worth 
citing. I read from the Report of the United States 
Commissioner of Education for 1873, p. 287: 

'* ^New York has eight normal and training schools 
in full and successful operation. The first one was 
established as an experiment in 1844. For nineteen 
years it was the only institution of the kind in the 
State, and was surrounded by a multitude of acade- 
mies professing to do similar work in training teachers 
for common schools. A trial of the two plans through 
that period, and a comparison of results, led to the 
conclusion that normal and training schools, organized 
and conducted with special reference to the object 
in view, were the proper institutions to educate teach- 
ers for the public schools. Accordingly, provision was 
made for a second normal school at Oswego in 1863, 
and in 1866 a law was passed authorizing certain 
officers of the State to act as a commission to locate 
six others. When the new normal schools were opened 
to the public, a feeling of hostility was manifested on 



The Southwestern Normal School. 87 

the part of many persons interested in the private 
academies, which developed itself in the legislature of 
1872 by an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the usual 
appropriations. There was no real provocation for 
this assault, except the success of the normal schools, 
whose excellence and popularity were such as to dimin- 
ish the attendance at the academies. . . . The ordi- 
nary annual expense of maintaining all the normal 
schools is about $150,000. . . • Whether it is advis- 
able, says the State Superintendent, to expend the 
sum mentioned to educate competent teachers, or to 
expend the whole amount to pay poor teachers, is not 
debatable with those who believe that the improve- 
ment of the common schools is the first duty to the 
taxpayers who support them. 

''Other examples might be cited. I think we shall 
find that even nine or more schools in full and success- 
ful operation will not be able to supply the demand for 
our public schools. 

''The fear has been expressed that a system of nor- 
mal schools, bound in the unity of one administration 
and furnishing the teachers, would establish a bureau- 
cracy and make the profession in time a sort of close 
corporation. It is a needless alarm. If our ten nor- 
mal schools had each five hundred students and were to 
graduate, each, a hundred every season, it would not 
furnish a fourth of the thousands annually required 
to fill up the ranks of the profession ; for of the nearly 
20,000 teachers needed for our district schools, some 
three to four thousand must annually be replaced. 
There will always be a demand for every competent 
teacher, come from what quarter he may. We shall 
always need many more and be compelled to take them 
from other sources. 



88 The Southwestern Normal School. 

'Tet the State then lay hold of and help our normal 
schools. They deserve it. Amid all their trials they 
are doing a work of inestimable value for the public 
schools. Under the wise administration of our school 
department they ^have bated no jot of heart or hope 
but have kept right onward,* with the primal idea of 
the normal school kept steadily in view. I say again, 
they are doing a noble work. The poorest of the 
teachers who have been at the normal schools carry 
a new light into the districts they occupy, and carry 
in them and breathe around them a higher purpose, 
a nobler aspiration. I appeal to this association to 
take a deeper interest in this matter. They are no 
private concern. There is nothing in our affairs of 
more vital moment to the public. The question of 
the normal schools I hold to be the supreme educa- 
tional question of the hour. I know of nothing more 
important for this convention than to turn itself with 
unity of purpose to the consideration of this subject 
in any way that might help perfect these institutions. 
And I should be glad, if not impracticable, to see 
appointed a committee empowered to prepare an ad- 
dress to the Legislature presenting the condition of 
these schools, their claims upon the state, with sug- 
gestions for their consideration relative to any remod- 
eling of the law establishing them, that might be 
wisely made. 

**This is not a matter in which those only are inter- 
ested who are connected with the normal schools; it 
is, I reiterate, a common, a public interest. For my- 
self, I am not originally of the normal schools; but I 
have put a number of my best years into them at 
much sacrifice, and am there to-day not because it is 



The Southwestern Normal School. 89 

comfortable for me or profitable, but because to pass 
out seemed the abandoning of a work to which I had 
been set by Providence. But I shall no longer feel 
obliged unless the State takes hold and helps to per- 
fect what has been begun, and to ripen the precious 
seed which, I know, some of us have cast into this 
soil. I want nothing in this, but what is for the up- 
lifting of our profession, nothing but what is legitimate, 
nothing but what may enable these schools to fulfill 
their mission and occupy their true place in the 
rounded grandeur of our Commonwealth." 

Discussion. 

'*0n motion of the chairman of the Executive Com- 
mittee, speeches by members in the regular discussions 
of the association were limited to ten minutes each. 

'*Dr. John S. Hart, of New Jersey, was introduced 
by the chair as *a native of Pennsylvania' to which 
he added 'born in Massachusetts.' He had been 
transplanted young, however, and now called himself 
a Pennsylvanian, as he was never quite so happy as 
when on Pennyslvania soil, and in the company of 
teachers of the common schools, for they are the base 
of our great pyramid, which is more important than 
its apex. The argument in the paper was so complete 
and entire that there is nothing left for others to do, 
except to say *amen,' and subscribe to it. It has been 
well said that the great exhibition will compel us to 
come down several pegs. We were going to show 
the world how superior we are in all respects, particu- 
larly in the matter of education; but, here too, we 
must come down. The normal school which is our 
present subject of discussion, is not a * Yankee notion' ; 



90 The Southwestern Normal School. 

Europe had it before us, and has carried it to greater 
perfection than even Pennsylvania with her nine noble 
schools. We cannot fail to recognize and emphazise 
the fact that the Europeans are ahead of us in the 
training of teachers. 

*'He was glad to see our discussions open on the 
question in popular education. We are growing up 
to the idea that it is something more to know how to 
teach a thing than simply to know the thing. It is as 
preposterous to suppose anybody born a teacher as 
to suppose him born an engineer. The state should 
appropriate more liberally than any state has yet 
done, to the support of these training schools. The 
five years spent by himself in normal work school had 
more fully employed his entire manhood than any 
other period in his experience. The state of Pennsyl- 
vania has already done a great work in the direction 
of normal schools but he hoped to see it quadrupled." 

*'Supt. Geo. J. Luckey, of Pittsburg, endorsed the 
paper so far as it went, but it did not go far enough. 
The idea of the normal schools was good, and they 
have done a good work; but there is a defect in the 
law, which works to their injury. The requirement 
of ten acres of land shuts them out from the cities, 
where alone large numbers of professional pupils can 
be furnished; and so they degenerate into academies 
for the education of the children of trustees and stock- 
holders, and their immediate neighbors. Why should 
the people of the whole state be taxed for the advan- 
tage of particular localities? Why not support other 
academies as well as these? These schools should be 
reorganized before they receive further aid from the 
state; they need to be made in fact what they now 
are only in name — Normal Schools.'* 



The Southwestern Normal School. 91 

'*Dr. Edward Brooks said that all new enterprises 
must fight their way into public favor, and the normal 
schools are no exception. .We have done a good deal 
of fighting in this state, being constantly called on for 
*a reason for the faith that is in us/ We feel that the 
normal schools are a part of the system by which the 
state is trying to train up good citizens; that their 
relation to the state is the same as that of the common 
school ; yet an effort seems made to crowd us into the 
position of interlopers. 

'We do not attack either the superintendency, the 
colleges, the academies, or any other form of educa- 
tional work; but one or other of them almost every 
year makes an onslaught upon us. We might have 
better superintendents, even of cities ; as well as better 
normal professors, principals, and schools; but we do 
not consider it necessary to be continually talking 
about it. We have often believed we had buried this 
corpse beyond resurrection; but ever and anon its 
ghost stalks among us. . . . It is not generally under- 
stood—although such is their privilege— that gradu- 
ates of colleges or practical teachers may appear before 
the State Examining Board on precisely the same 
terms as the normal graduates, and receive the same 
grade upon the same examination.'* 

'*Supt. Luckey said that if the State assumed the 
entire support of the schools, as well as their entire 
control, many objections would be removed, and the 
schools would serve a better purpose than at present. 

^'Deputy Supt. Curry said the propriety of estab- 
lishing and maintaining normal schools does not seem 
to be questioned; all live teachers consider them a 
necessity. The question is. How shall we bring them 
to a higher plane, and make them more useful? The 



92 The Southwestern Normal School. 

time has come when they seem about to crystallize; 
and their best friends do not desire that they should 
crystallize in exactly their present form. It is proper, 
therefore, to consider the whole question, and the best 
method of rectifying such evils as may be found to 
exist in their organization or operation. This is a 
critical period for those schools which incurred debts 
in prosperous times, and must now, in order to keep 
their heads above water, take children almost from 
the alphabet. He thought the Legislature had done 
right and could not endorse the veto, which was a 
severe blow in many quarters. He hoped something 
might be done here to secure larger appropriations to 
these schools. Their debt should be wiped out, and 
these institutions for training teachers placed upon a 
professional basis. 

**Dr. Brooks said the Pennsylvania normal school 
idea did not involve making them purely state schools; 
the faculty were not appointed by the State, nor under 
the absolute control of the State. The same is true 
of the common schools; the State supports them, the 
local authorities control them; there is government 
by the people and supervision by the State. It is a 
question whether we should do better to place the 
absolute control of our system, or any branch of it, 
at Harrisburg. For himself, he believed it was safer 
to trust the people than the politicians.'* 

After considerable further discussion : 

'It was requested that the author of the paper 
should present some definite resolution to which the 
discussion should be confined, instead of firing at ran- 
dom, and on motion it was agreed that a resolution 
from Mr. Ehrenfeld — embodying such points as had 



The Southwestern Normal School. 93 

been presented in his report, or recommending such 
other action in the premises as seemed advisable — 
should be the first order to-morrow morning, to which 
time the further discussion of the subject under con- 
sideration was postponed/' 

Wednesday Morning, 
the normal schools. 

'The first order of the morning was then taken up 
— the following resolution being offered by Prof. C. L. 
Ehrenfeld : 

'' Whereas, The subject of our normal schools is 
of very great importance, and the necessity of some 
early action is urgent; Therefore, 

'* ' Resolved y That a committee of nine be appointed 
by the president of this convention, whose duty it shall 
be to take up the subject of our normal school law 
and the policy based upon it, the needs of the schools 
pecuniarily and professionally, and make such sug- 
gestions and propose such changes in the present law 
and present policy as shall seem to them best after 
the widest possible consideration of the matter; and 
further, to prepare an address to the legislature on 
the subject, with the aim of securing careful, patient 
and thorough consideration of the question by that 
body, and of obtaining such legislation relating thereto 
as may give us a truer and more successful policy for 
the normal schools in our Commonwealth.*'* 

*'Dr. Brooks moved the adoption of the resolution, 
which was seconded. 

*'Mr. Luckey said the resolution was entirely too 
vague; we want something more definite. The com- 



94 The Southwestern Normal School. 

mittee, if appointed, should be instructed what to do. 
There should be some definite expression by this meet- 
ing concerning the future management of the normal 
schools. He thought everybody who was not directly 
interested would agree that we should either have 
state schools in reality, or cut off all state aid and con- 
nection. Let the State appropriate money to buy 
these buildings, if necessary; let the State pay the 
faculty and regulate their standard, and thus make 
them state institutions. The unfavorable influence 
of local interests under the present system must be 
patent to everybody. If the State supported the 
schools, they would not need to receive children as 
pupils, in order to keep them alive. They would be 
lifted above their present level, and made worthy of 
the name they bear. He hoped this committee would 
be instructed to report to the Legislature in favor of 
taking the schools out of the hands of local boards of 
trustees and placing them under full control of the State, '' 

*'Dr. Brooks said there were two standpoints from 
which the subject might be treated — with reference 
to the system, and with reference to their work. By 
considering these two aspects separately, we shall have 
a more intelligent discussion. Much of the antago- 
nism we meet with concerns the work of the schools; 
but he believed the work to be better than the system. 
Like all human things, both system and work have 
their defects; yet he thought normal schools showed 
no more or greater imperfections than the other edu- 
cational agencies of the country. 

''Of the stronger criticisms, selected from a large 
number of weak ones, are these: (i) That we have 
too many academic pupils. (2) That our students do 



The Southwestern Normal School. 95 

not remain long enough in the profession to pay the 
state for its appropriations. (3) That there is too 
much local control, and not enough power in the state. 
With regard to the first, the percentage who do not 
contemplate teaching is small; and though the time 
may come when an ideal system shall exclude all these, 
thus far the state has received manifold benefits from 
these 'academic' pupils. Second, he had been sur- 
prised on looking over his catalogue yesterday to find 
that the students remain in the profession so long. 
The ladies, of course, having distinguished themselves 
as teachers, are apt to be sought for as housekeepers; 
but they stand out against it as long as possible, as 
long as they think it safe. And when they become 
wives, the State loses nothing; they make good 
mothers, and prepare their husbands to become good 
school directors, or become such themselves where 
the people have sufficient liberality and intelligence 
to elect them. Third, as the large majority of our 
students come from a distance, the 'local' objection 
falls. 

''It is to be remembered that these normal schools, 
like Topsy, grew up themselves; the state, instead of 
fostering them, was at first indifferent, even antago- 
nistic. If our educators had waited on the legislature 
they would probably have been waiting to-day. The 
normal schools are, so to speak, an accident of the 
system; no wonder then that they are imperfect. 
When they began their work they could get only 
academic pupils — the teachers were too poor to come. 
But we took those who came, and indoctrinated them, 
and made teachers of them. There are hundreds of 
good schools to-day, whose success testifies that those 
'academic* pupils are a blessing to the state.'' 



g6 The Southwestern Normal School. 

"Mr. Luckey said Dr. Brooks always made a good 
speech, and if this one had been made yesterday per- 
haps he would have been converted. He merely rose 
to set himself and his friends right. We are not anti- 
normal men. We honor the men who have been 
instrumental in building up the schools, and appreciate 
the success they have achieved; but we do not want 
to stop where we are; we desire to finish their good 
work, and have true normal schools.'* 

The discussion was continued in lively and incisive 
handling of the normal schools, both pro and con, in 
which Professors R. K. Buehrle, N. C. Schaeffer and 
others took active part, after which Professor F. A. 
Allen said * Ve must abandon details or we shall soon 
come to swords' points.'* 

To make the question more definite, he offered the 
following substitute for the resolution under discus- 
sion: 

** Resolved, That we recognize the necessity of normal 
schools. 

^^ Resolved, That a committee of nine be appointed 
to remodel the system, so as to make these schools 
far more efficient, and to meet the demand for a much 
larger number of trained teachers. 

''Resolved, That this committee be required to meet 
at Harrisburg, and make and publish their report two 
months prior to the session of the Legislature." 

The debate had become so warm that it ran on 
in rapid current which did not keep entirely within 
its proper bounds. 

In this further discussion Miss Martha Schofield 
and Miss Elizabeth Floyd took a noticeable part and 
asked ''that woman be represented upon this impor- 
tant committee." 



The Southwestern Normal School, 97 

A vote was at length taken upon Professor Allen's 
substitute modified by suggestion of Superintendent 
Baer, directing the committee to report to the next 
session of the association and it was adopted. 

On the following morning the committee on re- 
organization of the normal school system was an- 
nounced as follows: Messrs. C. L. Ehrenfeld, Geo. J. 
Luckey, F. A. Allen, Edw. Brooks, R. K. Buehrle, 
N. C. Schaeffer, J. W. Weaver, Misses Elizabeth 
Floyd and Jane E. Leonard. 

STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS. 

Recommendation Towards Their Reorgani- 
zation. 

*'(To the editor of the Pittsburg Commercial.) 
'The committee appointed at the last convention 
of the State Teachers' Association to prepare a plan 
for the reorganization of the state normal schools, 
and which consisted of Professors C. L. Ehrenfeld 
(chairman), G. J. Luckey, Edward Brooks, F. A. 
Allen, N. C. Schaeffer, J. W. Weaver, Superintendent 
Buehrle, and the Misses Jane E. Leonard and Eliza- 
beth Floyd, met at the School Department, Harris- 
burg, on Tuesday, November 14. The members of 
the committee were all present except Professors 
Luckey and Weaver. Superintendent Buehrle was 
appointed secretary, and deputy Superintendent 
Houck was invited to sit with the committee and 
represent the school department in the absence of 
State Superintendent Wickersham. 

''After the above preliminaries the chairman, Pro- 
fessor Ehrenfeld, read the draft of an act which pre- 



98 The Southwestern Normal School, 

sented a comprehensive and carefully prepared plan, 
both in general and detail, for the reorganization of 
normal schools and for their establishment upon a 
new basis. The proposed act aimed to plant the 
schools over on a new foundation chiefly under State 
control, thus binding them more fully to professional 
ends as well as securing their deliverance from finan- 
cial difficulties; but the plan presented was thought, 
by most of the committee, to be more revolutionary 
in some of its essential features than would be found 
practicable at this period in the history of our normal 
schools; so the adoption of it was not pressed, but the 
following recommendations of the committee were, 
after full discussion, adopted unanimously, excepting 
a partial dissent in a few points : 

''i. That the State assume the present legitimate 
indebtedness of the schools, except the interest, said 
indebtedness to be paid in five years in as many annual 
installments. 

''2. That the minimum number of trustees shall 
be six and the maximum number eighteen, but that 
whatever the number fixed upon by any school the 
one half shall be appointed by the Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, and the other half elected by the 
stockholders ; the term of office to be three years and 
the incumbents to be chosen and appointed that the 
one third shall go out of office annually. 

''3. That the board of trustees shall meet semi- 
annually or oftener if they prefer, and they shall have 
authority to appoint two or more of their number who, 
with the principal, shall constitute a prudential com- 
mittee to manage the affairs of the school in the in- 
terim between the meetings of the board. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 99 

"4, That in the appointment of principal the board 
of trustees shall nominate the candidate for that office 
to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with 
whom shall rest the power of confirmation; the term 
of the principal shall be three years, and that he shall 
be ex-officio a member of the board of trustees. 

**5. That the principal shall nominate to the board 
of trustees the other professors and teachers for terms 
of office not exceeding one year, and the board shall 
have authority to confirm; but that no trustee shall 
be eligible to the position of teacher or steward nor 
the steward or any teacher eligible to the office of 
trustee. 

''6. That no person shall be eligible to any position 
as professor or teacher who has not been a practical 
teacher for at least five years and who does not 
hold as evidence of scholarship at least a normal 
diploma of the master's degree or a diploma from a 
regular constituted college, except in the case of 
teachers of music, elocution and graphics, who may be 
chosen without possessing the above diploma. 

**7. That the State provide to make tuition free to 
all who fulfill the four conditions enumerated in the 
following section (8), and that the fifty dollars at 
graduation be continued as heretofore. 

*^8. That the conditions of admission into a normal 
school shall be as follows : 

'\a) Males shall be at least seventeen and females 
sixteen years of age. 

*'(&) All shall possess a sound physical constitution 
and good moral character. 

'\c) Average intellectual abilities with a fair know- 
ledge of the common school branches. 



loo The Southwestern Normal School. 

''(d) All shall sign a paper expressing their intention 
of preparing to teach in the public schools of this 
commonwealth. 

*^Other students may be admitted, provided there 
is room upon payment of a tuition fee as fixed by the 
board of trustees. 

**9. That all revenues accruing from the boarding 
department or otherwise shall be devoted to improve- 
ments of the school and under no circumstances shall 
be appropriated to the payment of dividends. 

**io. That there shall be connected with each school 
a department of observation and training in which 
the members of the senior class shall spend at least 
three fourths of an hour each day for half a school 
year observing the work of the teacher and also teach- 
ing therein ; this work to be under the supervision of the 
principal and the appropriate professors in teaching. 

**ii. That the normal school shall be visited semi- 
annually by the State Superintendent or one of his 
deputies to see that the letter and spirit of the law 
are properly carried out. 

^'i2. That the examinations of the senior classes in 
the different schools shall be held on the same day, 
and that the candidates for graduation shall be tested 
by written questions, the same for all, and furnished 
by the superintendent of public instruction, who shall 
also fix the percentage of correct answers which shall 
be required to entitle the candidates to their diplomas. 

^'13. That hereafter there be no additional normal 
schools recognized except the one already mentioned 
at Lock Haven, in the eighth district, and one each 
for the cities of Pittsburg and Philadelphia, and that 
in the case of these two cities the provisions in the 



The Southwestern Normal School. loi 

present law requiring ten acres of land with dormi- 
tories and dining halls shall be held inoperative in 
respect of the normal schools offered by them for 
recognition. 

*The above recommendations were left at the ad- 
journment of the committee in the hands of the chair- 
man, with the instruction that he should put them in 
the form of an act for the Legislature; but both on 
account of domestic affliction which has engaged his 
time constantly since the committee met, and oh ac- 
count of desiring to consult further in respect of the 
matter in hand, he has done nothing more at present 
than to put the recommendation into as clear a state- 
ment as practicable and arrange them as has herewith 
been done, leaving the subject of drafting the form 
of a bill to be attended to hereafter. 

C. L. Ehrenfeld, 
'Tittsburg, Pa., 

November 27, 1876." 

It appeared in The Commercial the next day. 

The foregoing movement did not reach the Legis- 
lature, chiefly because those most deeply interested 
in the movement and who had best apprehension of 
the prospect of accomplishing what was desired 
thought it would be a case of Love's Labor Lost. 



FINIS. 



The Faculty,' 1910-11. 

HERBERT BURNHAM DAVIS, Principal, 

Psychology and Pedagogy. 
A.B, Bates College; Ph.D., Clark University. 

JOHN DANIEL MEESE, Vice-Principal, 

English Language and Literature. 

M.Ph., Mount Union; A.M., Franklin and Marshall; Litt. D., 

Heidelberg (Ohio) University. 

REV. CHARLES LEWIS EHRENFELD, Ex-Principal. 
Associate Professor of Latin and English. 
A.B., A.M. and Ph.D., Wittenberg College. 

JAMES BOYDEN SMITH, Registrar. 
Ph.D., Waynesburg. 

GEORGE GANS HERTZOG, 
Higher Mathematics. 

MRS. MARY GRAHAM NOSS, 

German, Geography and Art. 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School; Student, Universities of 

Berlin and Paris. 

SOUTHWESTERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 
ANNA MAY SHUTTERLY, 

Librarian. 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School. 

iNames, after the officers of the faculty, are arranged in the order 
of time of service. 



^Resigned. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 103 

ANNA BELL THOMAS. 

Training Teacher, First Grade, 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School. 

ANNA BUCKBEE, 

History and Civil Government. 

M.E. Mansfield, Pa., State Normal School. 

HENRIETTA MILLER LILLE Y, 

Training Teacher, First Grade. 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School; 

Chicago Normal School 

LOUISE MAE WARD. 

Assistant Librarian. 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School; 

CHARLES STEPHEN CORNELL. 
Voice Culture; Chorus Director. 

ELIZABETH LINDSAY ROTHWELL, 

Drawing and Painting. 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School; 

Graduate Chicago Art Institute. 

CHARLOTTE ELLA TRUMAN, 

Training Teacher, Eighth Grade. 

Student, Buffalo State Normal School; 

Student, University of Chicago. 

AGNES BIRKINSHA, 

Training Teacher, Fourth Grade. 

M.E.. Southwestern State Normal School. 

WALTER MITCHELL.i 

Mathematics. 
A.M., Mt. Union; Ph.D., Allegheny. 



104 The Southwestern Normal School. 

SOUTHWESTERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 
CHARLES VEON, 

Instrumental Music. 

B.M., Geneva College; Graduate Conservatory of Musical Art of 

Western Pennsylvania; Graduate Monguio School of Piano. 

Student Berlin and Paris. 

INA C. PRATT, 

Training Teacher, Sixth and Seventh Grades. 

Graduate Northfield Seminary and Framingham Normal School; 

Student at Heidelberg and Munich. 

EDWARD HARRISON KNABENSHUE, 

Science. 
A.B., West Virginia University; 
Student in Chicago University. 

ERNEST A. COFFIN, 

Latin and Pedagogy of Latin. 

A.B., and A.M., University of Toronto. 

H. JUSTIN COLBURN, Principal of High School. 

History and Pedagogy of History. 

A.B., and A.M., Harvard. 

MRS. ADA H. PILLSBURY, 

Oratory and Training of the Speaking Voice. 

Graduate of Emerson College of Oratory. 

MARY T. NOSS. 

French. 

A.B., Wellesley. 
Matriculated Student at the Sorbonne, Paris, 1906-7. 

IVY E. MORSE. 

Training Teacher, Sixth Grade. 

Graduate of Farming ton (Me.) State Normal School. 



The Southwestern Normal School. 105 

J. L. CROW, 

Lecturer on Oral Hygiene. 

D.D.S., Western University of Pennsylvania. 

R. O. WITCRAFT. 

Mathematics and Athletics. 

B.L., Ohio Wesley an University. 

J. F. KINSLEY, 

Commercial Branches. 

B.L., Mt. Union College. 

BERTHA F. THOMPSON. 

Physical Instructor for Women. 

New Haven School of Gymnastics, 

New Haven, Conn. 

ELEANOR JOY CLEAVER, 

Trained Nurse. 

George Washington University, 

Washington, D.C. 

JOHN H. ADAMS, 

Science. 

A.B., and A.M., Hanover College. 

EVELYN D. KOLBE, 

Rhetoric and Composition. 

A.B., Women's College, Baltimore. 

CORA MILLER ERASER, 

Training Teacher Fifth Grade, 

M.E., Southwestern State Normal School. 




o 
o 



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CO 



LBJe 



PENNSYLVANIA 

AND THE 

FOUNDING OF HER 
NORMAL SCHOOLS 



'Tantaemoliserat' 




